Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and a senior member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, pressed Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt to commit federal funding for the emergency replacement of the Washington Bridge. Whitehouse questioned Administrator Bhatt in an EPW Committee hearing on Wednesday.
“We are a small state. This is a bridge that is really important. It’s an important piece of our national infrastructure,” said Whitehouse.
“We will be pursuing, energetically and ardently, support from the Highway Administration and from the Department of Transportation for the funds that we’re going to need to get that bridge repaired timely and right. And I look forward to working with you on that. And we’d love to hear you express some care and enthusiasm for helping us solve the Washington Bridge problem,” continued Whitehouse.
“I commit to energetically and enthusiastically continue to work to get that bridge replaced,” replied Administrator Bhatt.
The westbound span of the Washington Bridge was closed in December after the discovery of critical failure of key components of the bridge. The state has estimated that the cost of demolishing and rebuilding the bridge is approximately $455 million. The Rhode Island Department of Transportation submitted a $220.9 million application for a U.S. Department of Transportation MEGA grant to rebuild the bridge. Senator Whitehouse and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) helped create the MEGA program as part of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Rhode Island congressional delegation supported the state’s application.
A partial transcript of the Senator’s exchange in the hearing is below. A video is available here.
Senator Whitehouse
I did want to come down and thank Administrator Bhatt for coming to Rhode Island to see the Washington Bridge problem that we have. You came on your own and I appreciate that – on a cold and windy day. And you came back again with Secretary Buttigieg to take a second look with the Secretary.
This was a bridge that carries 90,000 vehicles a day. It’s a vitally important link from the East Coast mainland up towards Boston, out to Cape Cod and to points west. It’s where I-95 and I-195 converge, and it carries I-195 across the Providence River there. And thanks to an alert inspector, who was actually operating pursuant to a transportation grant, they were able to see that this bridge, which is as you know of quite unusual construction, had tension members that were holding it up that had basically sheared away, and that the bridge was in fairly immediate danger of collapse.
So, we’ve had to close it. There’s been substantial effort to reroute the traffic onto safe parts of the bridge. It’s now flowing considerably better after a great deal of work.
But the Bridge is going to need to be replaced. And it’s extremely important to us. We are a small state. This is a bridge that is really important. It’s an important piece of our national infrastructure.
We will be pursuing, energetically and ardently, support from the Highway Administration and from the Department of Transportation for the funds that we’re going to need to get that bridge repaired timely and right. And I look forward to working with you on that. And we’d love to hear you express some care and enthusiasm for helping us solve the Washington Bridge problem.
Administrator Bhatt
Thank you, Senator, and I appreciate your leadership on this issue. It was a very cold day the first time we were out there. I actually went up to Boston and toured the Cape Cod bridges just on Monday, and also a project, the Alston project, but I actually chose to travel in through Providence so I could check on the bridge.
And as you say, thankfully the efforts by Rhode Island DOT to widen the lanes there to add some capacity have had an impact. So it’s not the quite the traffic snarl that was there initially. But I know that’s a very important project for you. I commit to energetically and enthusiastically continue to work to get that bridge replaced.
Senator Whitehouse
Thank you. We will need funding, and the funding also needs to take into account the extent to which traffic has been driven through neighborhoods off the bridge. That has been a significant air quality and convenience penalty paid by people living nearby in Providence, South Providence, and East Providence, as essentially highway traffic has been rerouted through neighborhoods.
So, thank you for attention to this. We look forward to working with you and Secretary Buttigieg to a happy conclusion that gets that bridge back in full operations as quickly as possible.
