WASHINGTON -- For politicians in Washington and North Carolina, it's a question without an answer. Where will the money come from to fix the I-85 bridge over the Yadkin River?

The North Carolina Secretary of Transportation Lyndo Tippett says it certainly won't come from the state. "In the past six years, we've had about 80 percent inflation in our construction costs," he said. "When you have that inflation rate, you build about half as many projects."

The Yadkin project still has no estimated start or finish date and the estimated pricetag is nearing $400 million. It was originally supposed to be finished as part of the I-85 widening project, but Tippett said the state ran out of money. Tippett said the best chance for completion would be to build a toll road, an idea that faces a lot of opposition from Rowan County leaders.

Charlotte Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) agrees that a toll road may not be the best answer. "A lot of local people will pay disproportionately the cost of it because they have to use the bridge a lot," he said. "It's going to divert a lot of traffic into Spencer and East Spencer and Salisbury, because people will go around the toll potentially." He believes the bridge repair needs to come from a federal and state partnership.

But earmarking federal dollars for the project has been a headache for North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole. Dole, a Rowan county resident herself, said she was told not to get an earmark. The complete letter she wrote to the North Carolina Department of Transportation can be found in the sidebar to your right.

Several members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation, including Senator Dole, have also been meeting with local leaders in the past month to try to come up with a solution. Davidson County Commission Chairperson Larry Potts opposes tolling; he said the best answer right now would be to make it part of a bond referendum on a state level or get a national referendum on bridges through Congress that would direct additional funds to I-85.