Aging bridges to be improved or replaced with the help of $5B federal funding
Dozens of aging bridges in 16 states will be replaced or upgraded with the help of $5 billion in federal grants announced Wednesday by President Joe Biden’s administration, the latest beneficiary of a sweeping infrastructure bill.
The projects range from coast to coast, with the largest providing an additional $1.4 billion to replace two vertical-lift bridges over the Columbia River that carry Interstate 5 traffic between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. The bridges, which also received $600 million in December, creating “the single largest bottleneck for truck traffic” in the region, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.
Other projects receiving $500 million or more include the Sagamore Bridge in on Cape Cod, Massachusetts; an Interstate 10 bridge project in Mobile, Alabama; and the Interstate 83 South bridge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which Buttigieg wanted to highlight with a visit on Wednesday.
“These bridges impact entire regions and ultimately the entire American economy,” Buttigieg said. “Their condition means they urgently need major investments to keep people safe and our supply chains moving smoothly.”
The subsidies come from a total of $1.2 trillion infrastructure law signed by Biden in 2021, which sent $40 billion to bridges over five years — the largest dedicated investment in bridges in decades. Biden touted the infrastructure bill while campaigning for re-election against former President Donald Trump.
But even Wednesday’s big subsidies will only make a dent in the US Roadmap. & Transportation Builders Association estimates $319 billion in bridge repairs needed in the U.S.
According to the federal government, about 42,400 bridges nationwide are in poor condition, despite some 167 million vehicles passing over them every day. Four fifths of those bridges have problems with the substructure that holds them up or the superstructure that carries their load. And more than 15,800 of the bad bridges were already considered bad ten years ago, according to an analysis by Associated Press.
The country’s poor bridges are on average 70 years old.
Bridges serve an important role that is often overlooked until their closure disrupts people’s commutes and slows down commerce. This became tragically clear in March when a freight ship struck a support pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland, causing the bridge to collapse into the water and in which six road workers were killedMaryland officials have said it could take four years and up to $1.9 billion to rebuild the bridge.
Some of the projects announced Wednesday include multiple bridges, such as a $251 million grant to improve 15 bridges around Providence, Rhode Island. That project is separate from a project to replace the Interstate 195 Washington Bridge over the Seekonk River, which suddenly closed closed to traffic last year at the end of 2019 due to structural problems.
In Florida, Miami-Dade County is receiving $101 million to replace 11 Venetian Causeway bridges that are nearly a century old.
Other bridge projects receiving funding include the Interstate 55 bridge over the Mississippi River connecting Arkansas and Tennessee; the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in Wilmington, North Carolina; four bridges carrying Interstate 95 over Lake Marion in South Carolina; the US 70 Bridge over Lake Texoma in Oklahoma; two bridges carrying Interstate 25 over Nogal Canyon in New Mexico; the 18th Street Bridge in Kansas City, Kansas; and the Market Street Bridge over the Ohio River connecting Steubenville, Ohio, with East Steubenville, West Virginia.