Beaufort lobbies for drawbridge

Fixed span seen as detrimental

Community leaders in Beaufort warn that tourism and marine businesses will lose 250 jobs and $17 million a year if the state replaces a U.S. 70 drawbridge with a fixed span too short for tall ships.

A planned 65-foot-high bridge over Gallants Channel would keep historic tall-masted vessels from reaching the N.C. Maritime Museum's new $4 million waterfront docks, according to an impact report prepared for the Beaufort town commissioners.

Big seagoing catamarans also would be blocked from the Jarrett Bay marine industrial park on the Intracoastal Waterway. Jarrett Bay has the only lift between Norfolk and Savannah that can pull boats as big as 220 tons out of the water when hurricanes threaten the coast, the report says.

The state Department of Transportation wants to start work in 2015 on a 2.2-mile, four-lane U.S. 70 bypass around the north side of town. DOT will remove the old two-lane U.S. 70 drawbridge, which links Radio Island to downtown Beaufort.

The proposed bypass, Carteret County's top road priority since the early 1990s, was added this year to DOT's construction timetable. Now some county officials worry that a design change would increase the cost and delay construction.

But Beaufort civic leaders named to a study committee this year say DOT overstated the cost of a new drawbridge -- and overlooked its benefits -- when it settled on a fixed-span bridge.

"Everybody wants the bridge and the bypass, there's no question about that," said Steve Rice, a civil engineer on the town's bridge committee. "But we think this bridge would be a mistake."

Thomas J. Steepy of Beaufort, a county commissioner who is chairman of the Carteret transportation planning board, said no one thought an economic study was needed a few years ago. But the economic picture has changed, he said.

"There's no doubt that there's a stronger economic case today than when this fixed-bridge decision was made about four or five years ago," Steepy said.

Boat-building and marine service businesses have prospered, and the tourism industry has developed a taste for tall ships.

A tall ships festival in 2006 sparked controversy in state political circles, but it was a hit in Beaufort. Now there's a proposal to build a copy of Blackbeard's pirate ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, with a 95-foot mast.

It would dock at the N.C. Maritime Museum's new 30-acre, $4 million waterfront site. The museum tract is just north of the planned 65-foot bridge that could spoil Beaufort's dream of pirate treasure.

Kristine Graham, a DOT design engineer in charge of the project, said DOT will weigh the committee's drawbridge proposal.

"We're going to read through it and consider it carefully," she said.

The town and county boards have asked DOT to consider a drawbridge. They have not decided whether to push the bridge committee's conclusions -- and risk delaying the bridge project.

"We're as close as we've ever been" to having the U.S. 70 bypass built, Steepy said. "How much time would be lost, how much cost there would be, I don't know."