A $90 monthly pass will be introduced by the Alabama Department of Transportation on Wednesday as the latest tolling proposal for frequent users of the future Interstate 10 Bridge and Bayway.

The pass will be available for purchase for all owners of Class 1 vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, motorcycles and any vehicle that doesn’t involve pulling a trailer), pre-paid monthly for unlimited trips.

In addition, the state will offer a 15% toll discount for I-10 motorists who do not purchase the pass but who will travel the future roadway more than five times a month.

The 15% discount will apply to the toll price of a $6 one-way trip between Virginia Street in Mobile and the U.S. 98 exit in Daphne. But the full stretch of the 10-mile roadway will be “segmented,” meaning that motorists will be assessed tolls only for the portions they use.

The entire toll plan will be unveiled during a 10 a.m. news briefing about the project at ALDOT’s Mobile office.

“We believe we have developed a plan that allows the people in this region to experience the benefits of the corridor and pay less than 30% of the costs while obtaining more than 60% of the benefits,” said ALDOT Director John Cooper, referring to estimates from the state’s tolling consultant, Boston-based CDM Smith, that 66% of I-10 users are frequent drivers along the interstate.

The $90 monthly pass, which equates to $1,080 a year, would help fund a $2.1 billion project that includes a new 2.5-mile-long, six-lane cable stay bridge that stands 215 feet above the Mobile River. In addition, the project involves replacing the existing I-10 Bayway with a new 7.5-mile, eight-lane span crossing Mobile Bay elevated to a height that would be above a 100-year storm surge level.

“If you go to work every day, that’s $90 a month and if it’s 40 trips, that is $2.25,” said Cooper, averaging out the frequent user toll. “It’s less than a gallon of gasoline.”

Opposition

Cooper’s comments come as social media rhetoric continues to heat up in opposition to tolling. An opposition Facebook group led by Auditor Jim Zeigler called, “Block the Mobile Bayway Toll,” has amassed over 25,000 followers who are adamantly opposed to any toll of any kind.

ALDOT has said that without a toll, the $2.1 billion I-10 project will not be feasible.

Cooper said he hasn’t had a conversation with Zeigler about the project or the toll proposals, and he said he’s heard from very few people with complaints about the project.

ALDOT did recently receive a letter signed by 10 members of the Mobile County state delegation who are opposed to tolls.

ALDOT spokesman Tony Harris said that the communication staff within ALDOT is aware of the mounting opposition to tolling. He said that state officials plan to hold more frequent media briefings about the project in an effort to provide more information ahead of a record of decision that will be released by the U.S. Department of Transportation sometime next month.

“We hear it and we take public input seriously and get it through our public involvement meetings and it’s helpful for us in making improvement to our projects,” said Harris. “We appreciate the reasonable feedback. There is a lot of misinformation out there, but we want to be able to fact-check that and correct that and provide accurate information.”

Among the latest bits of inaccuracy, which surfaced on social media Tuesday, is the prospect that the George Wallace Tunnel will be a tolled road starting next year when the project is scheduled to be under construction.

“There will be no tolling on any part of the facility until the project is completed,” Cooper said. “Toll collections won’t begin until the project is completely open to drivers.”

The Wallace Tunnel, as part of the current plan, will be tolled once the I-10 Bridge and Bayway open and are also subject to tolls.

ALDOT also doesn’t plan on closing the Bankhead Tunnel, which is a two-lane road that leads downtown Mobile motorists east to the Spanish Fort Causeway and the I-10 Bayway. The tunnel, which was originally opened in the 1940s as a toll road, is “still a good structure,” said Edwin Perry, project director with ALDOT.

Complicated financing

Meanwhile, ALDOT is awaiting feedback from the U.S. Department of Transportation on an application for an Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant. An announcement on whether the state will get the $150 million grant will be made later this month.

Even if the grant is received, it will not eliminate the need for tolls.

Aside from that, there are few federal options to pay for the massive project, Cooper said. The project is being pitched as a private-public partnership development or P3, which Cooper said is the future way major transportation projects will be funded.

President Donald Trump, during the early days of his administration, vowed to roll out a $2 trillion infrastructure spending plan based on the P3 concept. Though the program hasn’t gained traction with Congress, Trump has vowed that if he’s re-elected next year, an infrastructure program will be rolled out again.

The program relies on $200 billion in federal funds to spur private investment into major infrastructure projects.

“President Trump proposed an infrastructure program that relied heavily on tolling,” said Cooper. “If you look at the large projects around the country, before Trump became president, they were also being done based on the P3 model. It’s a little bit unfortunate for us, but we are caught out on the front end of a trend. The harsh reality is that it’s the way things are.”

Three project teams are in the running for the concessionaires contract for the I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project. The contract could be awarded in March 2020, with construction underway before the end of next year. The project’s timeline, right now, has the project being completed in 2025.

Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper speaks on Wednesday, December 19, 2018, inside his office in Montgomery, Ala. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com)­.

Cooper said within each of the three concessionaire teams, a multitude of partners exist in charged with guiding financing, construction and engineering. Each team will also have someone assigned to forecasting revenues generated from the tolling of the project.

He said that toll “buy-downs” will also exist, meaning that during the duration of the construction, if additional federal resources are available, the money could be used to offset tolls.

The project’s financing includes a mix of sources that includes assistance through the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), tax-exempt private-activity bonds, state funding and private investment from the concessionaire team.

Cooper declined to provide estimates for each, saying that negotiations are ongoing.

He said that Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) money was not a “practical source” of funding for the project, because a portion of that money has been already designated for other projects, that it’s not a conventional source for funding transportation projects, and that it’s long-term availability is unreliable.

GOMESA is part of a program, which began in 2009, that provides millions of dollars to Gulf Coast states from offshore energy leases. Major road projects are typically not included for funding.

“The GOMESA money is like so many things in the world we live in with trying to finance transportation projects,” said Cooper. “It is tremendously overstated as a potential funding source, and it is overappreciated as a funding source if it’s actually committed. It’s simply not a major factor in trying to finance a major project of this scope.”

Cooper said even if ALDOT were to receive the full amount of GOMESA funding, it won’t defray much of the toll costs for future I-10 users.

“I know no one wants to pay a toll,” Cooper said. “If I had my choice, I wouldn’t pay a toll. I would prefer the current funding level and a reduced funding level would be sufficient to do the things we can do with infrastructure. Unfortunately, that is not the case.”

‘No build’ prospects

At present, the “No build” option remains possible which means the status quo for I-10 and the Wallace Tunnel.

Cooper doesn’t consider it as a likely option. He said the congestion and the crashes along the Bayway are only going to “get worse” as time goes on.

ALDOT provided some statistics:

From June 1, 2018 to May 31, ALDOT estimates there were 161 congestion-related events during rush-hour traffic that led to 30-minute delays.

During that same time period, there were 132 crashes during peak travel times that led to delays of up to 75 minutes.

“The message we tried to get across at public meetings is that things are going to get worse,” said Perry.

ALDOT anticipates the average number of vehicles traversing daily on I-10 through the Wallace Tunnel going from 75,000 per day to 95,000 per day in 2040. The peak holiday travel periods typically draw around 100,000 vehicles per day to the Bayway, according to ALDOT.

“That corridor is necessary for economic progress and the quality of life for the people in this region,” said Cooper.