The Jubilee Parkway is a pair of parallel concrete

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

s that carry

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...

across

Mobile Bay Mobile Bay ( ) is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The ...

from the

George Wallace Tunnel The George Wallace Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels that carry Interstate 10 through Mobile, Alabama from the city's downtown, going beneath the Mobile River, and emerging on Blakeley Island where they join the Jubilee Parkway over Mobile Bay."Fr ...

on Blakeley Island in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

eastbound to Spanish Fort/

Daphne, Alabama Daphne () is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. The city is located along I-10, 11 miles east of Mobile and 170 miles southwest of the state capital of Montgomery. The 2010 United States ...

. The bridges are similar in design to the pre-

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

I-10 Twin Span Bridge The I-10 Twin Span Bridge, a nearly causeway officially known as the Frank Davis "Naturally N'Awlins" Memorial Bridge, consists of two parallel trestle bridges. These parallel bridges cross the eastern end of Lake Pontchartrain in southern Louis ...

near

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. Each of the two bridges is two lanes wide, for a total of four lanes, and long. The parkway was completed in 1978 and crosses the northern portion of Mobile Bay, running roughly parallel to the nearby

Battleship Parkway Battleship Parkway, commonly referred to locally and in the media as the "Causeway", is a long causeway that carries US 90 and US 98 eastbound across Mobile Bay from the Bankhead Tunnel on Blakeley Island in Mobile, Alabama to Spanish Fort, ...

, with which it has an interchange. It was named for the

jubilee A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of y ...

phenomenon that occurs intermittently in Mobile Bay, but is commonly referred to locally and in the media as the "Bayway".

Expansion

Since 2001, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has planned to expand the parkway to a total of eight lanes in addition to a connecting

cable-stayed bridge A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern o ...

with a main span long and high that would bypass the

. This is intended to eliminate the current traffic

bottleneck Bottleneck literally refers to the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle near its opening, which limit the rate of outflow, and may describe any object of a similar shape. The literal neck of a bottle was originally used to play what is now known as ...

on I-10 at the tunnel, but is very controversial locally due to the proposed bridge's potential visual and economic impact on the city. The arguments against the bridge have focused on the bridge's height of roughly , taller than any other structure in the city except for the

RSA Battle House Tower The RSA Battle House Tower is located in Mobile, Alabama and is Alabama's tallest building. The building is owned by the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA). It is the tallest on the Gulf Coast of the United States outside Houston. It replaces ...

, as potentially overshadowing the city. The potential economic impact is that, with less than of clearance under the bridge, it would hamper large ships and projects from the

Port of Mobile The Port of Mobile is a deep-water port in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It is the only deep-water port in Alabama. It was ranked by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as the 9th largest port by tonnage in the nation during 2014, with ...

and prevent large

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as "s ...

s from accessing the Alabama Cruise Terminal.

Incidents

One of the largest

multi-vehicle collision A multiple vehicle collision (colloquially known as a pile-up, multi-car collision, multi-vehicle collision, or simply a multi) is a road traffic collision involving many vehicles. Generally occurring on high-capacity and high-speed routes such ...

s in U.S. history took place on the Parkway on the morning of March 20, 1995. Caused by fog on Mobile Bay, the accident involved around 200 vehicles, killed one person, and injured more than 90 others. During the ice storm of January 28–30, 2014, the Bayway was closed several times for hours, diverting traffic onto the Causeway, while ALDOT crews used grading equipment to remove ice from the roadway. Asked why the Bayway wasn't sanded or salted, ALDOT officials said that they did not have the spreader equipment since ice storms occur in the area only about once every 20 years.

References

{{coord, 30.6652, -87.9637, display=title Bridges in Mobile, Alabama Bridges completed in 1978 Mobile Bay Interstate 10 Road bridges in Alabama Bridges on the Interstate Highway System Concrete bridges in the United States Girder bridges in the United States