On Thursday night, crews will begin work on what is expected to be the region’s most disruptive traffic project in decades: preserving the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge.
One-lane east and westbound nightly closures of the aging bridge start at 7 p.m. and will last through late January. The real work begins on the 28th, a human experiment on stress and patience for an unwilling population of tens of thousands of people as the state Department of Transportation closes all inbound traffic on the bridge to Wilmington for nine weeks. After a brief pause for the Azalea Festival between March 31 and April 8, the state will close outbound traffic for the next six weeks, with the goal of finishing by Memorial Day.
More than 65,000 vehicles cross that bridge daily. And while there is another less-traveled bridge 1.5 miles north, the closures are sure to upend life for commuters. County officials are bracing for it like they would for a hurricane — even staging a multi-agency emergency management post on the ninth floor of the Skyline Center, with a view of the headache below.
For many, the traffic quagmire has picked at wounds about how to get the old bridge replaced–and who’s going to pay for it. No agency has committed to fully funding it, even though officials identify it as the area’s top transportation priority.
In discussions about the lack of funding, some leaders have invoked the idea that it shows the area lacks political firepower, or that Raleigh overlooks the region. Perhaps both.
Communities east of I-95, the belief goes, get ignored.
For years, the slow decay of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge has embodied that feeling. It has been in poor condition since Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo was appointed to office in 2006.
“Even then, it was reaching its limits,” Saffo said.
Thirty years ago, there was a proposal to build a southern bridge, called variably the Cape Fear Skyway or Cape Fear Crossing, which would have been a 9.5-mile, $1 billion toll bridge to create a third passage over the river. The state spent at least $11 million planning, acquiring easements, and expanding roadways, but the project faltered for years and died in 2019. Meanwhile, ever-increasing traffic, including heavy trucks headed to the Port of Wilmington, has put more wear and tear on the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge.
A replacement would be built right next to the existing bridge, with the current one closing once the new structure opens to prevent traffic congestion and save acquisition funds. Because the existing bridge has a movable central section, the state has said continually fixing it is no longer a financially feasible option.
The assumption for longtime local leaders like Saffo had always been that tolls would be a necessary evil to fund a new and different bridge, but replacing the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge would remain toll-free–in large part because he and others interpret state law as forbidding new tolls on existing routes.
Much to Saffo’s frustration, the state has a different take, arguing that the proposals under consideration wouldn’t just replace the bridge, but expand it from four to six lanes — and thus it can be considered a new bridge.
"By putting two additional lanes, making it a six-lane bridge instead of a four-lane bridge, thereby quote unquote, it's a new bridge," Saffo said.
So now, a toll bridge replacement is on the table. It’s unclear where the idea originated but it’s certainly appealing to the state, which has been cash-strapped for years.
The main concern, for Saffo, many of his colleagues on Wilmington City Council, and other regional leaders, is that as long as the tolling option is out there, it will crowd out any other plans.
“It’s the only thing they’ve been talking about,” Saffo said. “Tolling, tolling, tolling.”
If tolling does end up being the only financially feasible way to replace the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, it’s bound to be politically unpleasant for many local leaders–especially as the decision to approve a toll will ultimately be up to many of the same officials.
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Just days after the inbound-lane closures begin, the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board is expected to make a key vote on whether a tolled option will be considered in the latest round of state funding requests.
That board–which exclusively holds the power to allow the bridge to be tolled–is split on the issue, after years of debates.
The last time this board met in November, things got feisty. Gov. Roy Cooper’s appointee on the state transportation board, Landon Zimmer, suggested that higher-ups would view the board as not being serious about funding a replacement if they don’t at least explore the tolled option. Not studying other options would be “ignorant,” Zimmer told them, Port City Daily reported.
To longtime New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield, also a member of the regional transportation board, Zimmer’s message was insulting.
Barfield’s anti-tolling logic has been unwavering: The state owns the bridge, they’re paying to fix it now, and it’s up to them to figure out how to find the money.
He said he finds it hard to believe that the state’s scoring process for transportation projects is purely data-driven. That process, the nebulous State Transportation Improvement Program, pits projects across the state against one another, competing for a shrinking pool of state dollars, as gas tax revenues slip and electric vehicle use climbs.
“It’s the only thing they’ve been talking about. Tolling, tolling, tolling.”
— Bill Saffo, Wilmington mayor
The last time the bridge was scored, it didn’t earn enough points to get funded, because it’s such a gargantuan request.
“If we are the economic engine of southeastern North Carolina…you can’t tell me that we don’t warrant a bridge replacement,” Barfield said. “You can’t tell me the data doesn’t indicate more needs to be done here.”
Many see outsized favoritism for projects in the Triangle and Charlotte areas. Barfield said he’d like to see legislative reform to account for geographic equity in the process. Saffo, who just joined the transportation board, said that was the case when he first took office, before the state’s old “equity formula” was replaced by the current “data-driven” process in 2013.
The old process spread money out “like peanut butter,” a Raleigh planning director explained to the News & Observer. Though critics have called it convoluted, the current process was supposed to place greater emphasis on the biggest needs, and in turn, has resulted in urban projects scoring higher.
Another potential discussed reform includes the state separating the biggest projects, like bridges, to be scored in their own group, rather than mixed in with all other roadway plans across the state. And while talk of tweaking the law has come up in regional transportation meetings, the board has lacked consensus to formally back any particular request, and local legislators haven’t filed bills on the issue.
Barfield cited a handful of past legislators who “were able to influence projects and make things happen,” but stopped short of directly critiquing current lawmakers. They haven’t called him about this, he said, and he hasn’t called them. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”
The tension points to a key question: How much sway do local officials have in Raleigh?
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The City of Wilmington and New Hanover County have tried to speak with one voice on the call to fund the bridge project with a combination of state and federal funding.
That includes formal lobbying in Raleigh and Washington, D.C., efforts by city and county legislative affairs liaisons, and direct outreach like Saffo’s recent meeting with federal transportation officials.
But it’s not clear how much lobbying can even move the needle.
According to State Sen. Michael Lee (R–New Hanover), a former North Carolina Board of Transportation member, that’s in part because of the 2013 transportation scoring reform. It was intended to prevent pet projects, but greatly reduced local lawmakers’ influence.
“We have the ability to help lead conversations, but as far as funding goes, the legislature doesn’t fund transportation improvements anymore,” Lee said.
Lee said he’s heard rumblings that some legislators might still wield influence in Raleigh. But he noted that there’s a fair amount of clout in the region, including his colleague Sen. Bill Rabon, who represents Brunswick, Columbus, and a small sliver of New Hanover counties.
That still hasn’t delivered funding for a new bridge, Lee said.
Brunswick County Commissioner Frank Williams, who is also a regional transportation board member, agrees that Rabon’s stature belies the myth of influence on this particular issue.
“I think the fact that one of the two most powerful people in the state Senate lives in Brunswick County proves that that’s not the case,” Williams said. “I think that there is plenty of [political] juice down here.”
Williams cited “major wins” for the region under the current system, like widening N.C. 211, completing Interstate 140 and the Hampstead Bypass as proof the area is landing in-demand funds.
But Saffo disagrees that transportation funding is based strictly on data.
“Politics will always play a role in transportation initiatives. I don’t care what they say,” Saffo said. “I think there’s some legislators that will tell you privately that they feel that the [process] is broken.”
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The politics around transportation funding is a double-edged sword. If you can be on the right side of it, you can also be on the wrong side.
Or, as some have said, you can be on the wrong side of I-95.
Before the 2013 reform, Saffo said the eastern end of the state netted its fair share of transportation project funding. Now, he said, money tends to stick around the western end.
Lee said the curse was there historically as well. “Back then, it was about how much political clout you had,” Lee said.
He referenced the late Democratic State Sen. Marc Basnight, who represented much of the Pamlico Sound and Outer Banks from 1985 to 2011. The region reaped a lot of benefits in that era, Lee said.
“I think the fact that one of the two most powerful people in the state Senate lives in Brunswick County proves that that’s not the case.”
— Frank Williams, Brunswick County commissioner
I think their multi-use paths are probably nicer than our roads,” Lee said.
There’s no consensus on the impartiality of either the state funding formula or political influence, but there is one thing most stakeholders agree on: the importance of federal money.
Lee and Saffo both pointed to the limited window of opportunity to apply for a grant through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which created a $110 billion pool for roads, bridges, and other major projects over five years. The act could fund up to 80 percent of a new bridge–and there’s a limited window of time to apply.
But that grant requires a state match–and state buy-in on the project. The state could still use a toll as part of the funding package for a replacement bridge, along with federal money, or opt not to toll the bridge if federal and state money is sufficient.
That decision is further down the line. For now, Lee said not considering a toll option could threaten that federal funding, and other states would be more than happy to get their hands on it.
After his recent trip to speak with federal transportation officials, Saffo thinks federal money is a real possibility for financing the lion’s share of a bridge replacement. But he doesn’t think accepting a toll is an acceptable compromise.
“To toll the Memorial Bridge, a half-a-century-old bridge, a roadway that people have been using for half a century, is just wrong,” Saffo said.
Johanna Still is The Assembly‘s Wilmington editor. She previously covered economic development for Greater Wilmington Business Journal and was the assistant editor at Port City Daily.
Ben Schachtman is the news director for WHQR in Wilmington and co-author of our weekly newsletter on the Cape Fear Region, The Dive.
