When Pastor Ferron Smith opened New Life Assembly of God about 17 years ago, the worries about safely leaving church did not exist like they do today.

“The traffic has just been getting heavier and heavier through the years,” said Smith on Wednesday, not long after the morning traffic rush had ended at nearby Rockwell Elementary School. “The weekends don’t seem so bad, but we are concerned about people pulling out and getting into an accident out here.”

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U.S. 31 remains a complex situation for Spanish Fort, less than two months after state transportation officials declared a five-year, $21.9 million expansion of the highway completed. That project cut through the heart of Spanish Fort and covered 3.6 miles of U.S. 31 south of Alabama State Route 181.

But the worst of the congestion seems to be building north of Route 181, where new subdivisions have popped up and a new elementary school opened this year. In fact, the congestion only seems to have gotten worse since the original U.S. 31 project first began in 2018.

Even a 35% reduction of Rockwell Elementary School’s enrollment since last year has done little to alleviate the problem.

“In my opinion, the problem isn’t our school” said Rockwell’s longtime principal Robbie Owen. “Look at how many people live here now.”

The situation has gotten so bad that Spanish Fort Mayor Mike McMillan met this week with Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper to discuss how the problem can be addressed.

“It can take 20 to 30 minutes,” McMillan said, referring to the time someone will sit in a traffic jam on U.S. 31 during morning and afternoon rush hours. “I purposely don’t drive that way. It’s just going to get worse if something doesn’t happen soon.”

Four-lane frustrations

The most preferred resolution for Spanish Fort officials is to further transform U.S. 31 north from the Route 181 intersection to Alabama State Route 59. At approximately 7 miles, that project, which would turn the two-lane highway into four lanes, could have a price tag that is more than triple the cost of the first leg of the project.

“We’re trying to get our hands around on making this happen,” said McMillan. “We had a figure tossed out to us and it nearly blew us away.”

Indeed, the costs of continuing with the U.S. 31 project would involve expensive right-of-way, realignments, utility relocations, engineering and other pre-construction necessities that drive up a project’s cost.

McMillan said the city plans to begin pursuing grants and begin developing a plan that will reveal the costs of the entire project. He said the project will involve the city of Loxley and include a partnership with the state and Baldwin County.

“The next step is identifying the moving elements involved,” McMillan said. “Traffic counts, looking for grant availabilities, and some kind of estimated cost for putting together a comprehensive plan for the development of that area.”

He added, “We all recognize it has to go up to 59.”

Expanding U.S. 31 is not in the short-term transportation plans for the state or the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization. The MPO’s Transportation Improvement Plan does include an intersection realignment at U.S. 31 and Old Highway 31, but that work is not expected to be more than a safety measure at that intersection and will not do much to alleviate the congestion, McMillan said.

James Gordon, spokesman with ALDOT’s Southeast Region, said anything beyond the intersection realignment will require a corridor study “to look at impacts and project right-of-way impacts,” alternative road alignments and projected costs.

“Funding is limited and prioritized statewide to address overcrowded two-lane roadways and this project is competing for those limited roadway capacity/widening funds like many other overcrowded two-lane roads across the state,” Gordon said. “There is no schedule at this time that can be provided with any confidence.”

Further expanding U.S. 31′s lanes is in the MPO’s long-term plans to 2045. According to that plan, U.S. 31 is among the highways within fast-growing Baldwin County to “become substantially congested” within the next 22 years.

Rockwell and Stonebridge

Owen said the perception for years has been that U.S. 31 is congested because of Rockwell, which opened in 1999, at a time when the only business within the vicinity was a gas station. Spanish Fort, which was incorporated only 30 years ago this July, had around 3,500 residents the year Rockwell opened. The city is close to 11,000 now.

Owen said the opening of Stonebridge Elementary School – a new school tucked within a growing subdivision north of Rockwell and close to U.S. 31 – allowed Rockwell to decrease its enrollment from 1,150 students last year to 750. Stonebridge’s enrollment is over 500 students.

“The Stonebridge subdivision is huge, and all of those parents who travel to Mobile to work, their route from Stapleton … they empty out on 31 at the same time (parents) are taking their kids to school,” Owen said.

Traffic often backs up at a new traffic light installed last fall at U.S. 31 and Eastern Shore Boulevard, but Owen said it’s been tweaked already several times to accommodate school and rush-hour traffic. He said the school no longer places a school resource officer to help with traffic control on U.S. 31.

“We have to be able to let parents come in and leave, but I cannot control the highway,” he said. “I think people have that perception they are getting stopped at Rockwell. But we are not stopping traffic.”

Alabama State Senator Chris Elliott, R-Daphne, said while schools located along a busy highway are “a challenge,” the congestion is related to a dramatic growth within the “entire 31 corridor.”

Elliott was a Baldwin County commissioner at the time the first U.S. 31 project began, and she said he feels the first portion of the project is working well. But in a high growth area, “we need to do more.”

A good location

For now, Smith — the pastor at New Life Assembly of God — is trying to find his own solutions to living with the traffic congestion. He said the church is looking to build a new parking lot – admittedly, an expensive fix – that he said will provide an alternative access to U.S. 31.

Despite the traffic worries, though, Smith said that having the church on a busy highway has been a blessing. The church has grown from hosting Sunday worship services before 30 people when it was first built about 18 years ago, to a congregation that is over 100 and growing.

Spanish Fort’s population is about 75% larger today than it was when the church was being constructed in 2005.

“It’s a very, very good location for our church,” said Smith. “All of the new subdivisions are out here, and we are in the middle of where a lot of people are living. We are ready to serve. We just have to wait for a break in traffic before turning left.”