It was last month I found out I’ve got just a touch of gephyrophobia (fear of bridges) mixed in with a smidge of acrophobia (fear of heights).

But Savannah’s Talmadge Memorial Bridge is one tall bridge. And driving over the apex, 185 feet above the Savannah River with treetops and roofs below, was enough to activate some white-knuckled, 10-and-2 driving.

And my next trip into the Georgia city might be even closer to the clouds.

State transportation officials plan to start work later this year on the bridge, which feeds into downtown Savannah, to raise it 20 feet higher. Meanwhile, long-term options have been discussed, including building an even taller replacement bridge or constructing a traffic tunnel under the river.

The reason for all the bridge talk? Shipping boats, same as Wilmington.

“As the fastest-growing port in the nation, the Port of Savannah is a significant economic engine for the Savannah region, Georgia, and the rest of the Southeast. However, potentially stifling future growth is the Port’s accessibility to larger ships,” a Georgia Department of Transportation project description states.

There are many parallels between Savannah and Wilmington – an active tourism economy, historic downtown river district, coastal ecology, ghost stories – so much that the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce organized its peer city visit last year to Savannah. There, Wilmington business and government officials heard about how their Georgian counterparts approached downtown redevelopment projects and a 3,000-acre Hyundai electric and hybrid vehicle plant that opened this year.

But the future of the two ports and how best to accommodate their growth while balancing their downtowns’ needs is another common thread.

For context, Savannah’s port handled 5.6 million TEUs, 20-foot equivalent units, in 2024. The Port of Wilmington handles about 320,000 TEUs annually.

Studies are being done to look at potentially deepening Wilmington’s navigational harbor to 47 feet from its current 42 feet to accommodate larger ships. Similar deepening studies are taking place in Savannah, also potentially from 42 to 47 feet.

Above the river, the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge is now 65 feet tall when it’s down and 135 feet when lifted. This summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommended at least 135 feet of vertical clearance for when the bridge’s replacement is built.

And as both coastal cities continue to move along the prolonged, multiyear processes for what happens above and below their rivers, they also share another thing in common: how to pay for the $1 billion-plus price tags for the projects.

It’s enough to give anyone chrometophobia.