Mobile Development Thread

[Bogue]

I used to think gas prices would make the automobile prohibitively expensive, but I think Western countries have quickly begun moving away from oil-based personal vehicles (and PacRim countries are probably right there as well). Hybrids are everywhere now, small/medium sized cars are "in", and full electrics aren't uncommon anymore. This has basically happened in a 5 year span (since Katrina jacked up the oil prices, really) Americans are in love with the personal auto and change vehicles fairly quickly. Means the highway system (& with it suburbia) isn't going away anytime soon.

I'd prefer they took pressure off the tunnels by making I-165 connect to the Africatown bridge (with a raised road section over the existing roadway) and connecting that to I-10. I-165's already underused and huge. That bridge is huge and underused. A lot of the beach traffic would evaporate with that and the commuter traffic between the counties could also easily use that.

but my preferences probably don't matter as they've already decided to build some pointless monstrosity of a bridge regardless. It's sort of pointless to argue over it anymore.

The Bayway does need to be widened, though. If for no other reason than b/c the Causeway is going to have to be reworked to include more bridges and allow more water mixing at some point in the future. There could potentially be sections of a fixed Causeway which aren't economically viable to 4-lane.

As for commuter rail, bus transit, etc. I think Mobile county is a better option for spending that money. Both b/c there's already a system in place that can be expanded and because there's a much larger population that's increasingly further from the center of town than the Eastern Shore suburbs. I'm not actually worried about the suburbs in Baldwin as much as the ones in Mobile. There's the 2 close established ones (Spanish Fort/Daphne), & the cool one (Fairhope), but if you go a bit inland outside of those then you're basically just paying more to live in Grand Bay/Semmes. Mobile county's got twice the population over a more concentrated area. The worst traffic in all of S. AL is Airport Blvd. That should be the priority. Getting some form of dedicated rapid transit along Airport from The Loop to Mobile Regional should be first on the list.