MUMBLINGS September 28, 2006

Despite my calm, cool, and collective disposition, I continue to be amazed at the growth and building development in Baldwin and Mobile counties. There are so many things going on that it is difficult keeping up with them.

All this creates many problems. One of the greatest is transportation. Although there are many highways and bridges that are needed now, because of lack of money and planning it will be years before the needs are met. By then, there will be even more needs.

Very important to Baldwin and Mobile counties and to the entire Southeast is the construction of an I-10 bridge across Mobile Bay.

This important trans-continental highway runs from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Florida. Already the number of cars on I-10 and this area exceeds capacity and is getting worse by the day. On some weekends and important occasions, even bad weather or closed lanes, create havoc with lanes backing up. Sometimes it takes an hour or more to get from Spanish Fort west to a few miles on the other side of Mobile.

Studies have been made on 14 locations with three of these sites acceptable. All of these are south of I –10. Not unusual for Mobile, there is a lot of opposition to all highway projects making highway authorities prone to spend their money elsewhere where it is appreciated. For example, they have been trying to get “Bloody 98” improved for several years, but local opposition has held it back.

Citizens in Mobile give little consideration to the needs of Baldwin County. And this is not unusual. They are more concerned about their own prejudice and lack of understanding.

I am not an engineer, but I learned a long time ago to let the decision be made by the experts… they know what they are doing. The average citizen has no conception of problems and possibilities of highway locations.

Certainly, local people are to be considered, but in the final analysis engineers are expert enough to know what is possible in the way of locating highways. Unfortunately, progress always seems to meet a lot of negativism. Authorities say whatever progress is good or bad, at least ten percent of the people object to it, and these are the ones who make the noise.

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Thousands of Baldwin Countians traverse to Mobile daily and construction of a bridge as soon as possible is vitally important to us. Someone capable of strong leadership like the media and governmental officials must try to convince the naysayers that unison of effort must be reached. Even if we started construction next year, it would be several years before this situation is improved. You can imagine how much worse the traffic will be during this time. All of these new developments will cause additional traffic problems and we need to spend our time in agreement rather than finding fault.

Perhaps the most unsound and ridiculous idea about where the bridge should be, is one of the most expensive and if built will not solve the problem. Many citizens think that I-10 should circle up to Prichard and then come back down on the east side of the river and continue to I-10 east to Pensacola. This would not only cost at least 50% more than the location suggested by the Highway Engineers, it would not solve the problem. The reason would be because it would cause people to go 20 miles out of the way. If you are going from Biloxi to Loxley you are not going an extra 20 miles, you would wait in line even an hour before you would do that. That route is obviously not practical, if you think about it.

While studies are continuing, the next public hearing is some time next year when the environmental studies are complete. These hearings are open to the public and everyone is invited and questions can be asked. Those who say otherwise, obviously have never been to one of these open meetings.

The least expensive bridge would be one of the three selected south and parallel to I-10 and that would be an estimated $700 Million, but Prichard route would be over a billion. A bridge can be built that would be an attractive addition to the scenery of Mobile. After all, many cities have high bridges including New York, Charleston, South Carolina, Jacksonville, Florida, Hong Kong and hundreds of others. Such a bridge would become an icon of Mobile and increase the economy, safety and pleasure of the entire area. The important thing is to agree to let the engineers make the final decision, because if we don’t, we will be arguing 20 years from now.

See you again soon, I hope.