Orange Beach, Ala. – (OBA) – Despite toll bridge traffic being less than the previous year’s total for the last four months of 2023, the totals for the year still exceeded traffic from 2022.

Starting in late August, the Baldwin County Bridge Company upped the toll for cash and credit card customers from $2.75 to $5 and totals in September, October, November and December were lower than 2022 totals with a total of 1.52 million cars during the four-month stretch. In 2022, 1.69 million cars came through in those months.

The city’s share from the toll was $1.67 million in 2022 compared to $1.7 million in 2023. As far as the city’s take, the December 2023 total of $98,193 was the lowest since $88,034 was collected in December of 2019.

Totals for both years show 5.58 million cars came through in 2022 compared to 5.67 million in 2023. In December alone, the 327,311 was well below the 385,074 in 2022 cars passing through the toll was the lowest in five years when 293,448 came through in December of 2019.

January of 2024 continued the decline when 332,938 compared to 390,471 in January of 2023.

President and CEO Neal Belitsky said the late-August increase was caused by Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper because Cooper would not accept the company’s offer to build a second two-lane span if the state canceled plans for a free bridge about a mile west of his company’s toll bridge.

“Now, as a result of the actions taken by Director Cooper, BCBC has been forced to increase the toll rates on the Beach Express Bridge,” Belitsky said.

BCBC had won a stop-work order from a Montgomery County judge in May halting the Scott Bridge Company’s work on the span across the Intracoastal Waterway. The company said Cooper acted in “bad faith” in negotiations over a second toll span. The Alabama Supreme rescinded that order on Aug. 25 and the toll increase was announced four days later.

Orange Beach receives a flat rate of 30 cents per car and that portion doesn’t increase if the bridge company raises the toll. Through 10 months of 2023, the city has collected almost $1.5 million or $178,153 short of the $1.6 million collected for all of 2022.

While the cash and debit tolls went up from $2.75 to $5, electronic rates for prepaid account holders, the rates paid by many local residents of South Baldwin County, were increased by $0.20 to an average rate of $2.22.

The discounted electronic rate for Orange Beach residents will remain $1.

The bridge company would be contractually obligated to build a second span anyway if two traffic thresholds are met. If the traffic totals reach two million in June, July and August of any year and the annual total is six million or more, BCBC would have to add a second bridge.