U.S. Awards Rhode Island $125 Million To Help Replace Partially Shut Highway Bridge

The underside of the westbound span of the Washington Bridge in Providence, R.I., taken in July 2024.

Photo (slightly cropped) by Kenneth C. Zirkel via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation will provide a $125-million grant for Rhode Island to use to reconstruct the Washington Bridge, half of which had to be closed because of structural problems. The state is hurrying to replace the structure, which carries I-195 in the Providence area.

The state Department of Transportation had requested $221 million in Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant support for the estimated $368-million replacement project.

"It's a big win for us," Gov. Dan McKee (D) told a television reporter.

Rerouted traffic and cost have been major issues since the partial shutdown, elevating the project to major story status in New England.

In March, structural deterioration that forced the December 2023 partial closure that was determined to be more severe than originally thought, according to state transportation officials, requiring demolition and replacement of the 56-year-old westbound span.

To recover funds needed to reconstruct the bridge, the state DOT filed a lawsuit Aug. 16 against 13 engineers and contractors that had inspected or performed work on the bridge in the last decade.

The DOT lawsuit claims defendants all knew or should have known of engineering and past inspection history of the 56-year-old bridge on I-195 and taken that into account "as part of their collective obligations to the State."

In the days before the grant was announced, the state DOT had temporarily shut down ongoing demolition of the closed western half of the bridge to collect evidence for its lawsuit against the engineers and contractors.

"The goal is to be able to continue demolition as swiftly as possible while ensuring important evidence is preserved," said McKee and Attorney General Peter F. Neronha in a joint statement.

"We empowered our legal team to make sure no stone would be uncovered," said McKee in response to a television reporter's questions.

Anticipation of the lawsuits after McKee's earlier call for accountability may have chilled the atmosphere surrounding the state's request for proposals to replace the westbound bridge span.

The proposals were due in July but no companies made submissions.

Deputy Editor Richard Korman helps run ENR's business and legal news and investigations, selects ENR's commentary and oversees editorial content on ENR.com. In 2023 the American Society of Business Publication Editors awarded Richard the Stephen Barr Award, the highest honor for a single feature story or investigation, for his story on the aftermath of a terrible auto crash in Kentucky in 2019, and in 2015 the American Business Media awarded him the Timothy White Award for investigations of surety fraud and workplace bullying. A member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Richard has been a fellow on drone safety with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Richard's freelance writing has appeared in the Seattle Times, the New York Times, Business Week and the websites of The Atlantic and Salon.com. He admires construction projects that finish on time and budget, compensate all team members fairly and record zero fatalities or serious injuries.