Port Canaveral officials raised an alarm after finding out the Florida Department of Transportation at the behest of the space industry had put on hold plans to replace a critical bridge at the port, which has also delayed the widening of the Beachline Expressway.

Port CEO Capt. John Murray laid out concerns about FDOT’s decision during the port authority commission meeting Wednesday. He said he thought all of the stakeholders, including commercial space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, were on board with a decision to move forward with a fixed-span bridge, one of several designs mulled during two public hearings held in January and February.

“It was a surprise,” Murray said. “We assumed we were in the full-scale design phase but we weren’t hearing much feedback on how it was going, which was raising our concern that something was changed.”

Murray said Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, who leads Space Launch Delta 45 and the Space Force’s Assured Access to Space, had asked FDOT to re-engage with the commercial space companies before moving forward with the design.

At issue is how to replace the State Road 401 drawbridge, which now has a 25-foot clearance, and opens 25 times each weekend, 180 times per month and nearly 2,200 times a year, Murray said.

It’s the sole public access to the north part of the port, including four cruise terminals, a major part of the port’s cargo operations as well as the Naval Ordinance Test Unit, U.S. Coast Guard facilities, Space Florida operations and the southern access point to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

“It’s gotten stuck open in the past. We’ve had various issues over the years,” Murray said. “2,200 times a year, there’s a lot of opportunity for it to fail, and it’s time for a replacement. It’s been deemed functionally obsolete by [FDOT] and we’ve been on a roll to get a new bridge for the last seven years.”

Matthew Richardson, a spokesman for FDOT District Five, confirmed the hold on the Project Development and Environment (PD&E) study for the bridge to gather more information from the space industry, which might include a need in the future to transport rocket boosters that wouldn’t fit under a fixed-space bridge.

Richardson said while there’s no timeline for the pause, he expects it to stay within the estimated timeframe for the PD&E phase of the project. He also said that while aspects of the Beachline, also known as State Road 528, widening project will be halted while the design choice is made, there are other phases that can continue.

Murray said concerns with any delay to either project might be that potential funds would divert elsewhere, forcing more delays.

Port Commissioner Wayne Justice was vocal in his dissatisfaction.

“The fact that the most important port district road improvement projects have been put on hold is astounding, and it’s extraordinarily disappointing,” he said. “You can’t believe how much work has been done by so many people to get to this point. And now we’re stopped? We’re paused? Unbelievable.”

Murray’s arguments for moving forward with the fixed-span bridge are that it alleviates the needs of the port now, and it’s the lowest cost among the options coming in at a projected $124 million. He said he’s not sure why commercial space concerns are being raised now when they didn’t voice concerns during the public meetings.

He also points out that the current example of the 150-foot-wide SpaceX barges that transport recovered boosters can’t go anywhere past the bridge because of the Canaveral locks, which at 90 feet wide are not wide enough to allow them passage into the Banana River.

Any future plans for taller boosters by SpaceX, Blue Origin or other companies would face the same roadblock. Those locks are controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and any widening or deepening of that access point would require federal funding and years of work.

“The space industry’s been involved in this process right from the very beginning,” he said. “SpaceX has been operating out of here since 2016, and you know we work very closely on what they’re doing, what they’re planning, same with Blue Origin, meeting with them on a regular basis. We all have an idea of what the expectations are, and at this point in time, I can’t think of anything that I’ve heard from them that would indicate we need a drawbridge going forward.”

SpaceX and Blue Origin could not be reached for comment.

State Rep. Thad Altman, who represents part of Brevard County, said looking down the line at the port’s role in the burgeoning space footprint is worth the time to look at the infrastructure options.

“The port — I don’t know why they’re trying to block just the study,” Altman said. “We’re trying to take a visionary approach on how we can build our infrastructure and do it in a way that really makes us the global player that we need to remain to be.”