The state Department of Transportation will not fund a proposed additional Route 2A bridge in the next five years, the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments has learned.

SCCOG's latest planning documents reflect the decision by the DOT to categorize the building of a new bridge as a major unfunded initiative in its forthcoming five-year transportation improvement program.

The proposed bridge would create two additional lanes of traffic over the Thames River at the Montville and Preston town line in an area that is frequented daily by thousands of motorists. Many use the bridge to travel to and from the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort casinos.

The report says DOT does not have the funding available to proceed with the project. Instead, the department plans to first repair and upgrade other bridges in the state with structural issues, according to spokesman Kevin Nursick.

"You're not talking about a structure that is deteriorating or is in some form of jeopardy. It is not deficient," Nursick said. "Basically, we have more projects than we do funding. The bottom line there is something has to give. Something has to fall off of the go list."

The current Route 2A bridge, also known as the Mohegan-Pequot bridge, has problems with capacity rather than structure, according to SCCOG Executive Director James S. Butler. Route 2A has a daily traffic volume of 23,800 in the Montville vicinity, according to a SCCOG report.

The new bridge is part of a four-pronged plan on the highest priority list in SCCOG's long-range regional transportation plan. The plan also includes adding a Route 2A bypass, widening Route 2 in Preston and upgrading Route 2 in North Stonington.

The new bridge would run parallel to the existing bridge, much like the Gold Star Memorial Bridge that connects New London and Groton. The bridge's estimated construction and design cost is about $100 million, Butler said.

Robert Congdon, SCCOG chairman and first selectman in Preston, said that having one lane of traffic on each side of the current Route 2A bridge is one of his concerns. In some cases, a crash can shut down one direction of traffic entirely.

Congdon said the new bridge is in the DOT's 20-year transportation plan but a construction date is indefinite.

"It will depend a lot on how things develop in southeastern Connecticut," Congdon said.

Butler said that in a recent meeting with Tom Maziarz, a DOT bureau chief, he voiced concern that an environmental evaluation performed by the Federal Highway Administration could become out of date before construction begins.

He also asked the DOT about studying the possibility of tolls on the new Route 2A bridge as a way to pay for the state's share of the cost, which would possibly also have federal funds. Such a study is under way to examine financing all or part of the completion of Route 11. The unfinished highway ends abruptly in Salem, detouring motorists to Route 85, a narrow, two-lane road.

Nursick stressed that lawmakers would have to pass legislation to make state tolls possible. The state has no tolls on its roads or highways.

But even if that happened, he said tolls on a new Route 2A bridge would be a "tough sell" - as is the immediate need for the new bridge.

"If this was a decrepit structure, we'd be having a different conversation," Nursick said.

jeff.johnson@theday.com