Senator Seeks Support for Alabama to Buy Tuscaloosa Bypass Toll Bridge

A state senator is pushing to see the state of Alabama purchase the Tuscaloosa Bypass toll bridge over the Black Warrior River and stop charging drivers to use it.

Today, the bridge is owned and operated by American Roads, LLC., which is headquartered in Detroit. They have operated the tunnel connecting that city to Winsor, Ontario for almost 100 years and also operate four "toll assets" in Alabama, including the bridge in Tuscaloosa.

The company was purchased in 2018 by CVC DIF, a Dutch investment firm.

Senator Gerald Allen was at the Tuscaloosa City Council's Tuesday evening meeting to ask the elected officials to adopt a resolution he drafted urging Governor Ivey to purchase the bridge outright.

"Although the bridge is technically private, the bridge has received millions of dollars of government support. Specifically, more than $20,000,000 has been spent by the State of Alabama on an interchange connecting I-59/20 with the toll bridge," Allen wrote in a draft resolution. "Tuscaloosa County spent millions of dollars on the Black Warrior Parkway, a public road to the bridge."

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"The foreign toll bridge operator in June increased the rate for residential vehicles by one-third to $2 per vehicle and the rate for standard commercial vehicles from $3.05 to $3.50, and other commercial vehicles increased even more," Allen wrote.

He said last year, the daily traffic count on the bridge exceeded 8,000 vehicles including many of the more than 1,600 workers employed by companies in the Tuscaloosa County Airport Industrial Park.

It's time for the vital infrastructure to be placed in public hands, Allen said, just like the Foley Beach Express bridge, which the state bought from American Roads for $57 million in April and immediately made free to use.

The draft resolution, if adopted by the city council, would "urge Governor Kay Ivey to take the necessary steps for the State of Alabama to purchase the Black Warrior Parkway toll bridge."

Allen asked the council to look over the resolution, study it, and consider adopting it and sending it to Ivey. He said he would ask the same of the Northport City Council, the Tuscaloosa County Commission, the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, and the Tuscaloosa County Economic Development Authority.

"I think you'll find support for that," Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said at the end of Allen's short presentation, although the council did not take any action on the matter Tuesday.

For more coverage of the issue as it works its way around the area's most influential bodies, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.