What happened to the Surf City swing bridge?
The old swing bridge that stopped traffic every time it opened for boats closed for good in December 2018, replaced by a fixed, 65-foot-clearance high-rise span. Today's bridge never opens — so bridge openings aren't why traffic backs up on Topsail Island anymore.
The short answer
The old Surf City swing bridge closed for good in December 2018 and was demolished over the following months. NCDOT replaced it with a fixed, 65-foot-clearance high-rise span that opened to traffic on December 4, 2018 — about nine months ahead of schedule. Because the new bridge sits high enough for boats to pass underneath, it never has to swing open, and it no longer stops traffic the way the old bridge did.
A brief history
The original Surf City swing bridge opened in November 1955: a 255-foot steel truss span across the Intracoastal Waterway, built to swing open sideways whenever a boat needed to pass. For 63 years, that was the only way onto the middle of Topsail Island — and every time it opened, every car on the road stopped and waited.
By the 2010s the bridge was aging, and the daily openings were a growing bottleneck for an island that kept getting busier. NCDOT took on a roughly $53 million project to replace it with a fixed span tall enough that it would never need to open at all. The new high-rise bridge, with 65 feet of vertical clearance, opened to traffic on December 4, 2018 — about nine months ahead of its original September 2019 target.
The old swing bridge was permanently closed the same day traffic shifted to the new span, then taken down in stages across 2018 and 2019. (If you're thinking of the other bridge onto Topsail Island — the one near Sneads Ferry at the island's north end — that one was never a swing bridge; this page is about the Surf City crossing in the middle of the island.)
Check the live number before you load the car
The swing bridge is history — what slows you down now is volume, not bridge openings. Topsail Traffic shows the crossing time right now, a three-hour forecast, and the best window to go.
Questions people ask
- What happened to the Surf City swing bridge?
- It was permanently closed and demolished after NCDOT opened a new fixed high-rise bridge on December 4, 2018. The old steel truss span that used to swing open for boats is gone; a bridge with 65 feet of vertical clearance now carries traffic in its place.
- When did the Surf City swing bridge close?
- Traffic moved onto the new high-rise bridge on December 4, 2018, and the old swing bridge went out of service that day. It was demolished over the following months, across 2018 and 2019.
- How old was the Surf City swing bridge?
- It opened in November 1955 and carried Topsail Island traffic for 63 years, until the new bridge replaced it in December 2018.
- Why was the swing bridge replaced?
- Age and traffic. The steel truss swing span had to physically open for boat traffic multiple times a day, stopping every car on the road each time it did. NCDOT's roughly $53 million replacement project built a fixed span with 65 feet of clearance that never needs to open, and it opened to traffic about nine months ahead of its original September 2019 target.
- Is the Surf City bridge still a swing bridge?
- No. Today's bridge is a fixed, 65-foot-clearance high-rise span that opened in 2018 and never opens for boats. If you're hitting backups now, that's vacation-season volume, not bridge openings — see our best-time-to-leave page for when the corridor actually slows down.
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