NCTA: A delay in Mid-Currituck Bridge study may save $60 million

....and I am not kidding either.

The North Carolina Turnpike Administration announced earlier this week that a new design option - one that they have just begun to look at from the past two weeks - may cut $60 million from the cost of the bridge.

The new possible design came in the preliminary Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) that was to have come out earlier this year. The NCTA is planning on delaying the release of the study until September. The Turnpike Authority states that the delay will not push back the hopeful start of construction of the bridge (late 2010) and its eventual completion (sometime in 2013).

The original estimates on the toll bridge's cost was $659.2 million. If the new design change - one that would change the location of tollbooths on the mainland/US 158 side of the bridge -, comes to fruition, the expected cost is closer to $600 million.

According to the NCTA, one of the benefits in delaying the study's release - is that taking the new tollbooth location into consideration now - would save the cost and delays of filing a Supplimental EIS when the project is further along.

For more:
Delaying study could save $60M on bridge - The Daily Advance

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