Joseph Emerson: A local perspective on ALDOT, Pleasure Island and the Bridge to Nowhere
Dearest Residents of the Great State of Alabama, please allow me to introduce myself and tell y’all a story about a bridge to nowhere. My name is Joseph Emerson, but most everybody calls me Joe. I am a 25 year resident of the City of Gulf Shores, Ala. My folks relocated to our family home in south Baldwin County in 1995; a mere 36 hours ahead of Hurricane Opal. Most of you know of this beach community or have at least heard of it. Gulf Shores is a small town situated on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. To our west, the historic Fort Morgan peninsula. To our east, the beautiful city of Orange Beach. With their numerous, towering condominiums and inland waterways leading to the Gulf, Orange Beach has become a first-class resort town for the everyone in the United States and farther. Both Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are independent municipalities, but the two are very much tied together historically, socially and economically. Little known fact, we are actually a small community down here with less than 18,000 full time residents living in the entire Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area. We locals sometimes fondly refer to this place as “Pleasure Island.” 50 years ago, that name came about because of the the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) running though the City of Gulf Shores and along the Northern shoreline of Orange Beach. We have always tried to maintain a small town atmosphere here, but these days we annually host upwards of 6 million visitors to our beaches. Those visitors end up spending over $4 billion dollars each year while on vacation here and the tax dollars generated on this 40 miles of sand help to power the state in the form of usable tax revenue. As you can imagine, it takes a lot to keep this place going. Infrastructure is a major concern to the folks that live and work here. In fact, improvement of roadways and evacuation routes (in case of hurricanes) is the top priority that residents of the area want our elected officials to address. Traffic is constantly bumper to bumper in certain parts of the island, with drive times being as much as 15 minutes per mile in certain areas of Orange Beach during the dog days of summer. Frustrating is the nicest way to describe the feeling most of us have in regards to Canal Rd. east to Orange Beach Blvd. As our popularity as a resort destination grows year after years, so must our infrastructure to accommodate that growth. Being that we are an “island” it is extremely important to develop our lands with intelligent, long-term planning practices while paying extra attention to the potential environmental impact of any projects in order to protect the fragile ecosystem that makes this place so special. Unfortunately, not all folks share this sentiment. In November of 2015, the local news announced a bridge project to be built near the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach city limits. The creators of this project boasted that it would create a way to move traffic more efficiently on and off of Pleasure Island. Instantly, folks were excited to have a potential solution to the traffic problems on Canal Rd in Orange Beach and Highway 59 in Gulf Shores. Unfortunately, after a review of the plans, it became quite clear that the proposed bridge (located 1.1 miles west of the toll bridge and 4 miles east of the Highway 59 Holmes bridge) would do little to relieve traffic. In fact, with no viable option to connect this bridge (Intracoastal Waterway Bridge) to the beach highway, it would do exactly the opposite of help. It would literally increase the amount of traffic on Canal Rd. The questions came to me quickly. How does this project help our dire infrastructure problems especially on Canal Rd? Why would ALDOT suggest this particular spot for a bridge? Who would even think that was a good idea?I started digging into the planning and funding of this project in the same week of its announcement only to find huge gaps in funding and a suspicious trail of land acquisition and proposed route maps. I felt I had to make this information more prevalent to the public eye to help create transparency about where the then proposed $30 million in tax dollars were being spent.I created a grassroots social media campaign and named it “End the #Bridge2Nowhere.” To date, our Facebook based group has over 2,000 (and growing daily) members sharing information with each other and the world concerning the building of this bridge and its associated projects. Traffic flow from Highway 59 to Orange Beach has been a constant talking point for ALDOT and the City of Gulf Shores when explaining their “necessity” for the Intracoastal Waterway Bridge and Roadway project. The head of ALDOT, John Cooper, is quoted as saying, “over 60% of the traffic over the bridge (Holmes) makes a left turn”. Thats indicating that said traffic is going to Orange Beach. The Gulf Shores City Administrator Steve Griffin is quoted as saying, ” In talking with State Park officials and ALDOT about the Holmes Bridge, we’ve found that 24% of all traffic going across the Holmes Bridge is actually going to Orange Beach or the State Park”. In yet another meeting, City of Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft said that; of 50,000 cars over the Holmes Bridge daily, 20% of them are heading to the East (toward Orange Beach). Wait a minute… 60%? 24%? 20%? What’s the correct amount? What is the real number? I attended multiple meetings from city council to regional planning committees. At every meeting I asked to see the (public record) traffic studies that justified the necessity of the ICWW Bridge. At every meeting I was told, “we dont have those numbers” or “those studies are not readily available.” But now I have found out that as of 4/24/18, ALDOTs John Cooper has testified in court under oath that NONE of those traffic studies were
