CURRITUCK — The federal government has awarded East Carolina University a $2 million grant to study the feasibility of building a 10-mile bridge over the Currituck Sound from the mainland to the Outer Banks.

The study could begin in the fall, said Al Delia, director of federal relations for the university.

A local grass-roots group, Build the Bridge – Preserve Our Roads, has lobbied federal and state representatives since last year to get the federal grant.

Local officials and representatives from the Build the Bridge group and ECU plan to meet in about a month, said Gwenn Cruickshanks, president of the group. State highway officials will not be present, she said.

“We’re extremely pleased our yearlong efforts to secure this grant were successful,” Cruickshanks said.

The study will evaluate former studies, including one by the state that favored widening U.S. 158 over building the bridge, and another done by the local group that concluded the bridge was the best option, Delia said.

The state is in the midst of a multiyear study on how to best move traffic – as many as 60,000 vehicles on a summer Saturday – through Currituck and Dare counties to the northern Outer Banks.

The General Assembly is expected to pass a bill this week that would empower the North Carolina Turnpike Authority to plan and build the bridge using a private contractor. The cost is estimated to be more than $100 million. The project would be financed with bonds and repaid with tolls.

Using a private builder and tolls is expected to speed up the project.

If successful, the midcounty bridge could set a standard for future highway projects, state and local officials have said.

The Turnpike Authority was authorized by the General Assembly in 2002 to build and operate toll roads in the state.

This week’s bill would expand the number of toll projects from three to nine and would include language pinpointing one of the projects as the midcounty bridge.

The bill also calls for the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet in Dare County to be built by private contractors. But the Bonner Bridge would not be a toll bridge.

The Currituck midcounty bridge has been discussed since the 1970s and listed as a state highway project since 1989, but money shortages and environmental permitting have bogged it down.

The bridge would relieve heavy traffic on U.S. 158 at the south end of the county and N.C. 12 in Duck and Southern Shores, supporters say.

Opponents think the bridge would only attract more development and traffic.

The North Carolina Outer Banks was listed recently as the nation’s fifth-worst travel destination for traffic tie-ups, in a study by the American Highway Users Alliance, AAA and TRIP, a national transportation research group.