Bonner Bridge's toll changes with the season.

• Position: REG IONALREPORT Eastern

Hatteras Island businesses hope the latest sand to settle under the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge won't shift for some time. On Dec. 3, N.C. Department of Transportation closed the 50-year-old bridge--which provides the only road access from the northern Outer Banks and mainland to the island via N.C. 12--after discovering that water had scoured sand from some pilings, compromising the structure's stability. It reopened 12 days later, after sand dredged from Oregon Inlet had steadied the pilings, but the closing cost Outer Banks communities more than $1.3 million in tourism, Hans Vogelsong says.

In 2008, the East Carolina University professor of recreation and leisure studies researched the economic impact of a hypothetical inlet forming on Hatteras Island--one that would wash out N.C. 12 south of the bridge--by subtracting spending by tourists who wouldn't be able to reach their accommodations. Such an inlet in Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, Vogelsong determined, would have the same effect as closing Bonner Bridge: $3.6 million every day during peak tourism season for Dare County and the Outer Banks.

While the bridge was closed, ferries from Stumpy Point to Ro-danthe supplemented the one that runs from Hatteras to Ocracoke, but they carried only about 750 vehides daily, no replacement for the more than 5,000 the bridge handles, Vogelsong says. Faster ferries with more capacity...