Mid-Currituck Bridge nearly ready to roll

Plans for the Mid-Currituck Bridge don't go back quite as far as the days of Blackbeard, but the project has been debated, dropped and debated again for decades - long enough for many a vacationer stuck in the summertime crawl to and from the Outer Banks to surrender hope it would ever get built.

The project is sailing along now, though. The North Carolina Turnpike Authority is finishing up a draft environmental impact statement on options for a five-mile toll bridge across Currituck Sound. Hearings are expected to start next spring.

State lawmakers, meanwhile, have made a long-term commitment to spend $15 million annually on a public-private partnership to build and operate the bridge, which would connect U.S. 158 on Currituck County's mainland to U.S. 12 just south of the village of Corolla.

Construction could begin late next year, with completion targeted for 2013. The cost of tolls is under study, but a 2007 assessment set the figure at $8 each way during tourist season and $6 off-season. A break for local residents is under discussion.

The route would cut travel to the northern end of the Outer Banks by an hour or more.

On the mainland, the bridge would begin near Aydlett, about 25 miles south of the Virginia-North Carolina line. The closest existing route across the sound, the Wright Memorial Bridge, is roughly 45 miles south of the state line.

Still unresolved is how much the bridge would - or should - affect Aydlett, a community of about 1,000 people, and other neighborhoods along Currituck Sound. A long-discussed option has called for the bridge to start at U.S. 158, enabling residents to continue using Aydlett Road to and from their homes.

But officials recently unveiled an option that would remove the existing road. Toll booths would be placed in Aydlett, and residents would have to use the new route to reach U.S. 158.

Officials say it would shave $60 million off the estimated $659 million cost. The alternative also has environmental benefits; the existing road serves as a dam for Maple Swamp. The replacement would restore natural water flow and include culverts to allow wildlife passage.

On both sides of the sound, the bridge's primary purpose should be to alleviate traffic jams, not generate more development that creates new problems.

If those caveats are met, the Mid-Currituck Bridge should be a boon for Currituck and its southern neighbor, Dare County. Easing traffic will likely make the Outer Banks an even more appealing destination. The bridge also would enhance hurricane evacuation plans; a 2007 study showed that it would take 27 hours to evacuate visitors for a Category 3 storm, a figure projected to rise to 36 hours by 2035.

If the bridge is completed, it will also serve as a striking contrast to how Virginia deals - or doesn't deal - with its transportation problems.

North of the border, Virginia's financial straits mean no major transportation projects are being built; Virginia is so short that it doesn't even have the money necessary to satisfy the public obligations in any public-private partnership.

So as North Carolina prepares to build a bridge dictated by convenience and safety, Virginia continues to dither over any number of projects that satisfy the same needs, and that would transport the same tourists. If the Mid-Currituck Bridge is built, North Carolina's gain might well prove to be Virginia's loss.