CURRITUCK COUNTY, N.C. — It's no secret that vacationers are met with bumper to bumper traffic on the way up to Corolla on a Saturday or Sunday from May to August in the Outer Banks. For years, the Mid-Currituck Bridge has been proposed to alleviate that traffic, but hurdles still remain before the project can become a reality for the area.
Right now, the North Carolina Turnpike Authority is going through the process of obtaining four environmental permits, conducting geotechnical investigations in the Currituck Sound and has also applied for a $425 million grant to help with the cost of the project. The Turnpike Authority had this to say about the projects process:
"The project team is continuing to advance the project, including obtaining environmental permits, and will continue to partner with the Albemarle Rural Planning Organization to determine next steps to deliver this critical project."
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One environmental permit needs to come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The USACE opened up its public comment period for the permit in late October and due to technical issues with the website, will be extending that period for at least a couple weeks. The USACE, in part, had this to say about the permitting process:
The results of this careful public interest review are fair and equitable decisions that allow reasonable use of private property, infrastructure development, and growth of the economy, while offsetting the authorized impacts to the waters of the US.
The cost of the Mid-Currituck Bridge now sits close to a billion dollars, part of the reason why a "multimodal project discretionary grant" is being applied for.
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Despite the project moving forward, there remains some opposition to it from the community, including one Currituck County leader telling us they are not excited for it but it feels like there's no stopping it now.
The Outer Banks community is encouraged to provide feedback on the permit from the USACE and you can find that website here. USACE knows the link might be broken at this time and is working to fix it, that is why they are extending the comment period at least two weeks.
For more information on the project itself, you can head to NCDOT's website here.
