Jubilee Parkway

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Jubilee Parkway
Jubilee Parkway Bridge.jpg
An eastern portion of the Jubilee Parkway as seen from Meaher State Park.
Coordinates 30°39′55″N87°57′49″W / 30.6652°N 87.9637°W / 30.6652; -87.9637
Carries4 lanes of I-10.svg I-10
Crosses Mobile Bay
Locale Baldwin County / Mobile, Alabama, USA
Characteristics
Design Girder bridge
Total length7.5 miles (12.1 km)
History
Opened1978
Location
Jubilee Parkway

The Jubilee Parkway is a pair of parallel concrete viaduct bridges that carry Interstate 10 across Mobile Bay from the George Wallace Tunnel on Blakeley Island in Mobile, Alabama eastbound to Spanish Fort/Daphne, Alabama. The bridges are similar in design to the pre-Hurricane Katrina I-10 Twin Span Bridge near New Orleans, Louisiana. Each of the two bridges is two lanes wide, for a total of four lanes, and 7.5 miles (12.1 km) long. The parkway was completed in 1978 [1] and crosses the northern portion of Mobile Bay, running roughly parallel to the nearby Battleship Parkway, [2] with which it has an interchange. It was named for the jubilee phenomenon that occurs intermittently in Mobile Bay, but is commonly referred to locally and in the media as the "Bayway". [3]

Contents

Expansion

View from underneath the bridges. Between the Bridges2.jpg
View from underneath the bridges.

Since 2001, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has planned to expand the parkway to a total of eight lanes in addition to a connecting cable-stayed bridge with a main span 1,250 feet (381 m) long and 190 feet (58 m) high that would bypass the George Wallace Tunnel. This is intended to eliminate the current traffic bottleneck on I-10 at the tunnel, [2] but is very controversial locally due to the proposed bridge's potential visual and economic impact on the city. The arguments against the bridge have focused on the bridge's height of roughly 500 feet (152 m), taller than any other structure in the city except for the RSA Battle House Tower, as potentially overshadowing the city. The potential economic impact is that, with less than 190 feet (58 m) of clearance under the bridge, it would hamper large ships and projects from the Port of Mobile and prevent large cruise ships from accessing the Alabama Cruise Terminal. [4]

Incidents

One of the largest multi-vehicle collisions in U.S. history took place on the Parkway on the morning of March 20, 1995. Caused by fog on Mobile Bay, the accident involved around 200 vehicles, killed one person, and injured more than 90 others. [5]

During the ice storm of January 28–30, 2014, the Bayway was closed several times for hours, diverting traffic onto the Causeway, while ALDOT crews used grading equipment to remove ice from the roadway. Asked why the Bayway wasn't sanded or salted, ALDOT officials said that they did not have the spreader equipment since ice storms occur in the area only about once every 20 years. [6]

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Mobile Bay is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the bay, making it an estuary. Several smaller rivers also empty into the bay: Dog River, Deer River, and Fowl River on the western side of the bay, and Fish River on the eastern side. Mobile Bay is the fourth largest estuary in the United States with a discharge of 62,000 cubic feet (1,800 m3) of water per second. Annually, and often several times during the summer months, the fish and crustaceans will swarm the shallow coastline and shore of the bay. This event, appropriately named a jubilee, draws a large crowd because of the abundance of fresh, easily caught seafood.

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Battleship Parkway, commonly referred to locally and in the media as the "Causeway", is a 7-mile (11.3 km) long causeway that carries US 90 and US 98 eastbound across Mobile Bay from the Bankhead Tunnel on Blakeley Island in Mobile, Alabama to Spanish Fort, Alabama. The roadway itself is a four-lane divided highway for most of its length. It is very susceptible to flooding and is usually submerged during hurricane storm surges. The Battleship Parkway is home to Battleship Memorial Park and to many of the Mobile area's more prominent seafood restaurants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General W.K. Wilson Jr. Bridge</span> Overpass in Mobile, Alabama

The General W.K. Wilson Jr. Bridge, more commonly known locally as the "Dolly Parton Bridge", consists of dual parallel tied through arches of weathering steel and beam viaducts of concrete that form one continuous span carrying four lanes of Interstate 65 across the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta northeast of the U.S. city of Mobile, Alabama. Built from 1978 to 1980, it spans a distance of 6.08 miles (10 km) over the delta, making it, along with the Jubilee Parkway across Mobile Bay to its south, among the longest bridges in the nation. It was named in honor of Walter K. Wilson, a Chief of Engineers with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and long-term resident of Mobile. He was credited with being one of the first people recognizing the need to construct a high-level bridge on Interstate 65 over the Mobile River that would not impede waterway development. The state of Alabama named the bridge in his honor after completion of construction in 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blakeley Island (Alabama)</span>

Blakeley Island is an island in the U.S. state of Alabama, within the city limits of Mobile. Located on the northwestern coast of Mobile Bay, it is bounded on the west by the Mobile River, on the south by Pinto Island and Mobile Bay, and on the east and north by the Spanish River. Blakeley serves as a vital road connection point between the Bankhead Tunnel, George Wallace Tunnel, and Cochrane–Africatown USA Bridge on its east side and the Battleship Parkway and Jubilee Parkway on its west side. The northern end is largely undeveloped, while the southern end is dedicated to industrial uses, primarily petrochemical storage and shipbuilding. The largest complex is the shipyards of Austal USA. Approximately 1.25 miles (2.01 km) at its widest and 6 miles (9.7 km) at its longest, it has an average elevation of 7 feet (2.1 m). It, along with downtown, forms District Two of Mobile's city council districts.

References

  1. "History". Rivers of Alabama: Mobile Bay. Archived from the original on March 12, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  2. 1 2 "Mobile". Mobile @ SouthEastRoads. Archived from the original on January 8, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  3. "Interstate 10 Eastbound". Alabama: SouthEastRoads. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  4. "Bridging the divide or the snarl ahead?". Mobile Bay Times. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  5. "Performance of Satellite Fog Detection Techniques" (PDF). National Weather Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 20, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  6. "WKRG".

Coordinates: 30°39′55″N87°57′49″W / 30.6652°N 87.9637°W / 30.6652; -87.9637