A budget of US$625 million will pay for repairs to 15 bridges in the US state of Rhode Island. The contract for the work has been awarded to a joint venture team comprising Skanska, McCourt Construction, and Aetna Bridge. The package of works was awarded by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (DOT).
The work will be carried out to 15 bridges on a 16km stretch of I-95 between Providence, Cranston and Warwick. This stretch of I-95 is being upgraded in a project worth a total of $779 million, including the bridge improvements. The work is commencing shortly and will be complete in 2031.
However, repairing these 15 bridges will do little to address Rhode Island’s defective bridge problem. This improvement work will repair three of the five bridges in the state that are classed as structurally deficient and carry heavy traffic volumes. But two other bridges carrying heavy traffic will remain unimproved and in all the state has 163 bridges needing to be repaired or replaced according to data supplied by the Rhode Island DOT.
The funding was made available through a package from the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which made $5 billion available for bridge works. This was made available through president Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s competitive Bridge Investment Program. A slice of this package was provided to the Rhode Island DOT for the upgrade work to the I-95 bridges.
