Oatland Island's Bridge Finally Has a Deadline. The Next One Already Has a Price Tag.

"The traffic just keeps getting slower and slower there," a daily commuter told WSAV News 3 last year, describing the drive over the Islands Expressway. He wasn't exaggerating. The project to replace the old drawbridge connecting Oatland Island and the surrounding islands to downtown Savannah broke ground in February 2018. It was supposed to be finished years ago.

It wasn't. And the story of why it wasn't, and what Chatham County has already lined up behind it, tells you more about life on this stretch of road than any brochure about live oaks and marsh views ever will.

Three Deadlines, One Bridge

The Georgia Department of Transportation issued its notice to proceed on the twin-bridge replacement in February 2018. The first of the two spans opened to traffic in July 2022, retiring the old bascule drawbridge and, according to GDOT, eliminating the backups that maritime traffic used to cause on that side of the river. The second span, the one everyone is still waiting on, has missed its own finish line more than once.

That last date is not a rumor. It's the number GDOT gave WSAV News 3 and WTOC on the record, and it's also the date printed on Chatham County's own engineering project page for the Islands Expressway Bridge Replacement. As of this week, that contract deadline has arrived. Whether the barriers actually come down on schedule or the county issues yet another revision is the kind of thing residents here have learned not to assume either way.

Why the Fines Disappeared

Here's the part that's easy to miss if you only skim the headlines. GDOT had been fining the contractor, Prince Contracting, LLC, $5,000 for every day of delayed work. When the completion date slipped again this spring, county officials didn't extend the penalty. They waived it. The reason, according to GDOT, was that the relocation of the City of Savannah's own utility services was disrupting construction, a delay the contractor didn't cause and couldn't have priced into the original bid.

That distinction matters if you've ever wondered why a road project can blow through four deadlines without anyone losing money over it. The contractor isn't the only party with a hand on this timeline. Utility relocation, drawbridge removal, and marine construction windows all have to line up, and when a city-owned pipe or line needs to move, the contractor's schedule moves with it, penalty-free. It's a useful thing to know before you assume the next completion date is any firmer than the last three.

What Actually Runs on Schedule

Contrast that with the other calendar Oatland Island residents keep, the one that has nothing to do with GDOT. Oatland Island Wildlife Center's Halloween Hike is set for October 16 and 17, from 5 to 8 p.m., and it has kept its dates for years without a single public revision. The center closes to regular daytime visitors early on those two afternoons to prepare, and reservations are required in advance, not a walk-up option.

Friends of Oatland, the nonprofit that supports the center's staff and animal residents, opens early registration to its members first. This year that window opens September 25, with public registration following on September 28. It's a small, almost bureaucratic detail, but it's the kind of thing a longtime resident already knows to circle on the calendar and a newer one finds out about a week too late.

The center itself sits on more than 100 acres of maritime forest along a two-mile trail, and it remains open 361 days a year even while the road out front stays under construction. That's worth sitting with for a second. The wildlife center has run its programming, its camps, and its seasonal events on a fixed calendar since 1974, through a road project that has now outlived the length of most residents' current mortgages.

The Corridor's Next Bottleneck Already Has a Number Attached

If the twin bridge does open on schedule this fall, don't expect the traffic story on this corridor to end there. A mile or so up the road, at the President Street railroad crossing near the Truman Parkway ramps, Chatham County officials are already designing the next fix. In July 2026, county engineers confirmed a roughly $85 million plan to build a bridge over the tracks, separating train traffic from the cars that currently stack up every time a train comes through.

The project has already secured a $7.5 million federal grant, and it's structured as a SPLOST match, meaning local sales tax dollars are expected to cover part of the gap while the county competes for additional grants. But the county's own timeline puts construction at around 2032. In other words, the corridor's next multi-year headache is already funded, already designed, and already scheduled, years before the current one is confirmed finished.

That's the thing about a road that funnels every commute, school run, and grocery trip on and off the islands through two narrow choke points. Fixing one doesn't retire the conversation. It just moves the argument a mile closer to town and pushes the calendar out to the next decade.

Life Keeps Moving Around the Cones

None of this has stopped daily life from happening around the construction zone. Turner Food & Spirits Co., a diner on Oatland Island Road itself, has kept serving regulars through years of lane shifts and detour signs. The YMCA Islands Branch, less than a mile from the wildlife center, still runs its usual schedule of classes and open swim. Publix, Coastal Middle School, and Marshpoint Elementary all sit within the same few square miles, close enough that most residents can run their errands without ever touching the Islands Expressway on a bad traffic day.

That's the real texture of Oatland Island right now. It's a neighborhood where the biggest visible construction project has taken longer than some residents' kids have been in school, where a nonprofit wildlife center has quietly kept a tighter calendar than the state transportation department, and where the next known bottleneck is already sitting in a planning document with a dollar figure attached, years before anyone will feel it in traffic.

If you live here, none of this changes your Tuesday. But it's worth knowing which parts of this place run on schedule and which ones run on revised schedule, especially the next time someone tells you the bridge is finally, actually, this time, done.

If you're weighing a move to this stretch of the islands, or wondering how road projects like this one tend to affect property values and timing on the Savannah coast, Liza DiMarco can walk you through what's actually happening on the ground here. Let's Connect.