Or does it?
Prodded by the urgent need for long-term repairs to a storm-ravaged Outer Banks highway - and constrained by the limits enforced by federal environmental regulators - the state Department of Transportation is moving toward a solution expected to include elevating more than four miles of N.C. 12 onto bridges, at a cost of several hundred million dollars.
The seven villages of Hatteras Island were cut off from the mainland Aug. 29, when Hurricane Irene blew out a section of N.C. 12 near Rodanthe and blew open a new inlet in the middle of the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Traffic was restored seven weeks later after DOT filled gaps with dirt and erected a 660-foot-long temporary steel bridge across what locals call the New Inlet.
DOT engineers will meet today with officials from 13 regulatory agencies to winnow their options for repairs intended to stabilize these fragile sections of N.C. 12 for at least 50 years. ...
That would leave just one of the alternatives floated so far: a pair of long bridges on N.C. 12. Early estimates put the combined construction cost at $211 million to $387 million. ...
DOT awarded a $215.8 million contract in July for a 2.8-mile bridge to replace the worn-out structure that carries N.C. 12 across Oregon Inlet, just north of Pea Island and Hatteras Island.
If I'm reading this correctly, maintaining N.C. south of Oregon Inlet will cost between $427 million and $604 million. According to the North Carolina Department of Commerce: "Domestic tourism in Dare County generated an economic impact of $834.29 million in 2010." Hyde County adds $30 million more. Applying some ad-hoc assumptions, 50% of spending is due to out of staters and 50% of that is south of Nags Head, then the annual benefits of having a road down the Outer Banks to North Carolina is about $216 million (of course, from a national standpoint the tourism benefit is $0 as those dollars would flow elsewhere without N.C. 12). The payback period (to NC) on road building looks to be about 3 or 4 years.
Note: The total tourism impact for North Carolina is $17 billion according to the NCDOC, about 7% of total state income, which sounds reasonable.
