newsobserver.com

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- The tolls motorists would pay to use a proposed bridge over Cape Fear River would cover slightly more than half of the project's estimated $1 billion price tag, according to a preliminary study.

The North Carolina Turnpike Authority has proposed the Cape Fear Skyway as a toll-supported southern crossing of the river that would connect New Hanover and Brunswick counties. The bridge, part of a proposed 9-mile highway, would rise 225 feet above the Cape Fear, and its supports would reach more than 500 feet.

The government must find a way to cover a funding gap estimated at $39 million a year over about four decades, according to a preliminary study released Wednesday for the Turnpike Authority.

Motorists would pay an optimum toll of $1.75 a car, or about 18 cents a mile, assuming the bridge opened in 2015, according to the study by consultant Wilbur Smith Associates.

That amount is low compared to urban tolls elsewhere in the U.S., such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia that costs $12, the study said.

North Carolina doesn't have any toll roads. The Cape Fear Skyway is one of seven potential toll roads in the state.

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