The year was 1969 – Richard Nixon was president, milk cost $1.10 and the New York Jets were Super Bowl champs – when crews completed the steel, 3,000-foot-long Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, opening Wilmington and the region not only to the wider world but also its dollars.
“(The bridge) provides a critical transportation link for not only the movement of people, but also goods and commerce,” said Mike Kozlosky, executive director of the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, or WMPO.
A federally designated planning agency, the 13-board-member WMPO “facilitates a cooperative, comprehensive and continuing transportation planning process that serves as the basis for the expenditure of all federal transportation funds in the area for streets, highways, bridges, public transit, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities,” according to its website.
Kozlosky pointed to a 2022 study by N.C. State University’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) that found North Carolina ports contribute approximately $16.1 billion annually to the state’s economy, with $14.8 billion attributed to the Port of Wilmington and $1.3 billion attributed to the Port of Morehead City. In addition, the ports contribute directly and indirectly to 88,200 jobs across North Carolina and $660 million annually in state taxes.
“The majority of this economic activity stems from the Port of Wilmington,” linking it to the Mid-Atlantic Industrial Rail Park and Industrial Logistics Park, both in Brunswick County, and the U.S. 421 corridor, Kozlosky said. “In addition, there are a significant number of employees coming to work from Brunswick County, and the bridge supports this employment.”
At 284 acres with nine berths and seven container cranes, the Port of Wilmington moves hundreds of thousands of containers and more than 3 million short tons (a unit of weight equivalent to 2,000 pounds) of general cargo every year, according to its website, making it the top port in the Tar Heel state and one of the most productive ports in North America.
“The Port of Wilmington has experienced tremendous growth over the last 10 years, and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge is an integral part of that growth story… (It) is a crucial piece of our region’s supply chain, not just connecting New Hanover and Brunswick counties, but helping to connect our state to global markets as well,” said a spokesperson with North Carolina Ports. “And every week, several thousand truck drivers use the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge to move those goods to and from the port.”
Some of those drivers work for Wilmington-based Veterans Express, a motor carrier company owned by Gary Winstead, former CEO of A.R.C. Transit, which was acquired in 2020 by Pennsylvania-based firm The Evans Network of Companies.
“When you consider that the Port of Wilmington is an economic engine, not just for Southeastern North Carolina, but for the entire state, that bridge becomes a critical link to getting traffic in and out of the port,” said Winstead, who firmly favors a new bridge.
For Winstead, one of the arguments for bridge replacement as it relates to the region’s continued economic growth came amid last spring’s $7.1 million bridge preservation project, which saw round-the-clock lane closures and delays significantly impacting port traffic.
“At the end of the day, the bridge being closed for repairs earlier this year gave us a little bit of insight as to how important that bridge really is to our future economic growth,” he said.
Winstead said that a replacement bridge would “allow the port to expand and grow with an increase in traffic.”
Last January, WMPO board members voted 8-5 to consider several options, including tolls, to help defray the cost of bridge replacement, believing, in part, that including a toll as a possibility would boost the bridge project’s score in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP).
The program identifies and prioritizes construction and funding schedules for statewide projects over a 10-year period. The higher the score, the greater the priority of the project and the more funding possible. If they were used, tolls could be set between $1 and $2, according to the NCDOT.
For Brunswick County resident and Leland mayor Brenda Bozeman, the thought of a new bridge that comes with a toll is daunting.
“The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge is critically important to the citizens of Leland,” she said. “If the bridge were to be replaced with a toll bridge, it would be a significant hardship for our residents who use it daily to get to work, doctor’s appointments, the hospital and more.”
She said her town is “home to many working families and seniors on fixed incomes who are all taxpayers of the state of North Carolina. Just like anyone else in this state, we have a right to free and accessible transportation routes. To put the cost of this bridge – one that will be used by people from all over the state and country – primarily on the backs of the residents of Brunswick and New Hanover counties is just wrong.”
Winstead also discourages a toll: “It would be my fervent hope that we wouldn’t have to go down that road,” he said.
Still, a toll remains a possibility.
“The project was scored as both a tolled and non-tolled option with the tolled option scoring high enough in the Statewide Tier to receive $85 million in funding,” Kozlosky said.
He clarified that the submittal was for scoring purposes only, and the WMPO board would have to approve any actual tolls.
In July, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $242 million to help cover the cost of replacing the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, or roughly half of the current estimated cost of the $485 million project. Funding came in the form of a grant through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which seeks to support federal public transportation programs, among other public initiatives.
“The award of this grant is tremendous news for the replacement of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and is the largest transportation grant award that I am aware of in the Wilmington region,” Kozlosky said. “A new bridge will provide additional capacity with six lanes with a wide shoulder, as well as a multi-use path for bicyclists and pedestrians to walk or bike across the bridge.”
Port officials described the federal grant as “transformational” and critical to “help ensure that port users will continue to have efficient access to the Port of Wilmington, and to global trade, for decades to come,” said a NC Ports spokesperson. “A new bridge will strengthen Southeastern North Carolina’s inland transportation access and long-term highway connectivity, which in turn better serves our port users and makes Southeastern North Carolina a more attractive place to do business.”
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