The Transportation Department last year signed a $52 million contract for bridge construction. He said the decision was made based on traffic data and support from local and state officials. Cooper said an alternative route is needed to alleviate traffic congestion on the highway leading to state beaches.
The public benefit of a new, free bridge should outweigh the interests of the private toll bridge company."ĭuring trial testimony, Cooper defended the decision to proceed with the project last year. “Years of negotiations with the private toll bridge company failed to deliver a solution. “We are disappointed in the decision because it’s clear that a new, free bridge is needed to help alleviate traffic congestion and offer a new evacuation option to residents and visitors to Alabama’s Gulf Coast,” Harris wrote in an emailed statement. Transportation Department spokesperson Tony Harris said the state will appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court. The company argued that Cooper acted in bad faith during negotiations to lower toll amounts and other operational changes, then pursued the new bridge project to financially damage the company. “Director Cooper’s outrageous conduct in embarking on spending more than $120 million of State funds, on a bridge that ALDOT does not need, for the purpose of putting a private company out of business shocks the conscience of the Court,” Pool wrote.īaldwin County Bridge Company, which operates the existing toll bridge to get to Gulf beaches, filed a lawsuit seeking to block construction of the new bridge that would be located just over 1 mile away from its existing toll bridge. Pool said trial evidence showed that Transportation Director John Cooper pushed for the new bridge without traffic studies and had only one discussion about it with the governor, Montgomery Circuit Judge Jimmy Pool, siding with the toll bridge company, issued a preliminary injunction ordering a halt to construction of the project.
(AP) - Driven by a “personal vendetta” against a toll bridge company, Alabama’s transportation director planned to build an unnecessary bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway at a cost of more than $100 million to the state, according to a judge who ordered construction to stop Wednesday.
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