Construction to begin in coming weeks on replacement of Alligator River Bridge
The North Carolina Department of Transportation has announced construction of a new bridge over the Alligator River between Dare and Tyrrell counties will begin in the next few weeks.
A $450 million contract was awarded Wednesday to Skanska USA to replace the 65-year-old swing-span Lindsay C. Warren Bridge with a modern, two-lane fixed-span bridge just north of the current bridge.
Under terms of the contract, the new bridge will open to traffic in the fall of 2029, with demolition of the current bridge to begin in the spring of 2030.
The bridge has been a constant headache for travelers and the N.C. Department of Transportation, even after replacement of mechanical and electric systems during extensive renovations in the 2010s.
More than 4,000 boats pass through the bridge every year while traversing the Intracoastal Waterway, forcing vehicle traffic to stop while the swing-span opens and closes.
When the bridge malfunctions for extended periods of time, drivers must travel detours that are at least 99 miles long, either along U.S. 264 through Hyde County or U.S. 158 and U.S. 17 through Elizabeth City.
The new Alligator River bridge will be a 3.2-mile-long, two-lane, fixed-span, high-rise bridge with 12-foot travel lanes and 8-foot shoulders, and cross the river at a new location just north of the current bridge.
Eleven concrete test pilings were driven last year at various depths into the riverbed to help engineers learn about soil layers and depths and soil consistency.
Those pilings will now be removed as work on the bridge gets underway.
A $110 million federal Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant was awarded in 2023 from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help pay for the replacement that will cost an estimated $286 million.
NCDOT applied for the federal grant in May 2022. It named its application STERLING (Strengthening Transportation Evacuation Resilient Lifeline by Improving the Network’s Grid) in memory of former Division 1 Engineer Sterling Baker, who passed away a month earlier.
Workers from Skanska will begin driving the first new pilings in the next several weeks, weather permitting, and begin other activities such as clearing soon thereafter.
Plans have been formulated for years to build a fixed-span bridge over the Alligator River.
It was originally going to be a new four-lane span, and would have been the final piece of a complete four-lane highway between Raleigh and the Outer Banks.
It was paired down to a two-lane span because of a shift in how state highway funding is distributed in 2016, along with environmental concerns over widening U.S. 64 between Manns Harbor and Columbia.
The Federal Highway Administration awarded a $25 million grant to NCDOT last month to build new wildlife crossing structures under U.S. 64 near East Lake.
