Orange Beach, Ala. – (OBA) – Traffic through the toll booths continues to trend downward in the two months after the Baldwin County Bridge Company raised the price for cash and debit card customers to $5 on Aug. 30.

Through August 2023 monthly traffic exceeded the monthly traffic totals in 2022 but the September total – after the toll was raised – was about 50,000 less than in September of 2022.

In October, that trend continued, but traffic declined by nearly 20,000 tolls pushing the annual traffic totals to 4.99 million cars. The bridge company is contractually obligated to build a second two-lane span if traffic totals in June, July and August reach two million cars and the traffic volume for the year reaches a total of six million.

Last year through September, 4.8 million vehicles passed through the toll booth. In the last two months of 2022, a total of 770,229 vehicles went through the toll booth and if that traffic holds up in November and December of this year the 2023 total would be about 5.7 million.

Officials with the Baldwin County Bridge Company say the increase is not an attempt to stem the traffic flow to avoid reaching the contractually obligated totals requiring a second bridge.

President and CEO Neal Belitsky said the increase was caused by the Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper saying 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 The Alabama Supreme Court rescinded that order on Aug. 25 and toll increase was announced four days later.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 with two months to go..

While the cash and debit tolls went up from $2.75 to $5, electronic rates for prepaid account holders, the rates paid by many 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 not be increased and will remain $1.