Following the February ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals rejecting the Southern Environmental Law Center’s (SELC) claim that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) should not have issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for the Mid Currituck Bridge it was hoped that the long delayed project would begin to move forward.
The project, though, still has a long way to go and an uncertain future.
According to a recent report, the SELC is planning on filing for a rehearing of the case before the Court of Appeals. Typically motions to rehear are not successful, but it does represent another potential delay.
That same reporting also suggested that the SELC will be brings suit against NCDOT claiming that it has been more than three years since the Environmental Impact Statement was issued and the agency had done nothing to move the project along. That’s based on a 2019 Federal Highway Authority ruling that if they did not work on a project for three years, the EIS had to be reevaluated.
It’s not clear if the challenge will work either. The NC Turnpike Authority, who is in charge of the project, has been working on getting permits for construction. The Turnpike Authority is part of NCDOT.
And even after all of that, there is still a good chance that the permits will be challenged in court when they are issued.
There is also some question about the funding for the project. According to state documents, a combination of bonds and direct payments have been allocated to build the bridge. The total amount through 2030 is $468 million, somewhat short of the estimated cost of the bridge at $502.4 to $594.1 million.
If the bridge does get built it will be a toll road. In theory it should go a long way to alleviating the summer weekend traffic woes that are a part of the Outer Banks story.
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