Repairs begin soon on busy Cape Fear River bridge that’s nearing the end of its life
During the next several months, workers will replace the metal deck on the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in Wilmington, in an effort to prolong the life of a vital span the state badly wants to replace.
The bridge was completed in 1969, connecting Wilmington with Brunswick County, and is near the end of its useful life. In particular, the metal center span, which lifts straight up to allow taller ships to pass underneath, must be watched closely and is the focus of work that will begin the second week of January.
“While the bridge is safe, it is in need of critical repairs,” Chad Kimes, NCDOT’s top engineer in the region, said in a written statement. “We need to start the project now to ensure enough time to complete this work before hurricane season and the start of the busy summer season.”
Replacing the steel deck will require closing the bridge to traffic, starting with eastbound lanes in late January. The goal is to have that side of the bridge finished by April 1, so it can be open in both directions for the weeklong Azalea Festival, which draws crowds to downtown Wilmington.
Then the westbound lanes will close, so workers can replace the steel decking there. The company that won the $7.1 million contract, Southern Road & Bridge, is supposed to finish the work and reopen the bridge by Memorial Day and can earn a $500,000 bonus if it finishes early, according to NCDOT.
More than 60,000 vehicles cross the bridge each day, including trucks going to and from the Port of Wilmington. At one end of the bridge is a grid of city streets, while the other passes through wetlands on Eagle Island.
NCDOT says it costs about $500,000 a year to maintain and operate the lift bridge and the cost is rising as it ages. In 2019, the state began looking at options for replacing the bridge and came up with four, all involving a new parallel span just downriver of the existing one.
Two of the options are fixed spans. One would be 65 feet high, about the height of the existing bridge, and the other 135 feet, the height of the current bridge when the deck is lifted. The other two options would be movable structures, one with a separate bridge for a railroad track, which doesn’t exist there now.
All four options would have three lanes in each direction, compared to two today, and a 15-foot multi-use path on one side.
NCDOT has money to do preliminary engineering for the new bridge, but none to acquire property or begin construction. The department recently applied for a $200 million federal grant that could cover some of the cost. In 2021, NCDOT said the new bridge could cost from $198 million to more than $609 million, depending on which option it chooses, and construction costs have risen since then.
The local transportation planning group, the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, has urged NCDOT to look at all potential sources of revenue to pay for the bridge, including possibly tolls, though both the local group and the state hope to avoid that.
The steel decks on the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge were last replaced 27 years ago. NCDOT and local governments hope the new decking won’t need to last anywhere near that long. But with plans for a replacement still uncertain, the work must be done, said Mike Kozlosky, executive director of the Wilmington Urban Area MPO.
“It’s an old bridge that needs attention as soon as possible to give Wilmington-area residents and tourists a way to travel between Brunswick and New Hanover counties for many years to come, until the bridge can be replaced,” Kozlosky said in a written statement.
This story was originally published December 21, 2023 at 11:12 AM.
