Major federal bridge grants jump-start long-stalled projects

More than a dozen large bridge projects secured federal funding Wednesday, including long-planned connections in Portland, Oregon; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Mobile, Alabama; Wilmington, North Carolina; and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The Biden administration announced the $5 billion in grants funded under the 2021 infrastructure law, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other federal officials planning to visit the selected sites over the coming weeks.

“Today’s announcement means that millions of people will have a better and safer commute, and that every American will benefit in some way—whether they use these bridges or not—from the smoother supply chains hitting fewer bottlenecks at 13 of the most significant bridges in the country,” Buttigieg told reporters.

Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt, who previously served as a state transportation secretary in Colorado and Delaware, said that many of the projects getting funding have been on the drawing board for years, and that, without the extra federal grants, many would not have been able to get underway for decades. “It just represents a golden age of infrastructure in which we find ourselves,” he said.

The Department of Transportation credits the bipartisan law with helping to reduce the number of bridges in poor condition since President Joe Biden took office from about 46,100 to roughly 42,400.

Buttigieg appeared alongside Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in Harrisburg on Wednesday to announce the $500 million the administration is sending to replace a bridge carrying Interstate 83 over the Susquehanna River. The bridge in downtown Harrisburg is more than 60 years old, and it provides a key link to the Baltimore region to the south.

Shapiro, a Democrat, joked that he owed Buttigieg and Biden an apology for the amount he has talked about the project with both of them.

“I have been a royal pain in the ass for the last year and a half talking about this I-83 bridge. They were sick and tired of hearing me go on and on about it,” the governor said. But they listened to him, Shapiro said. “This is the largest federal grant for a single transportation project in Pennsylvania history. This is a big deal.”

The federal grant will allow the state to replace the current bridge, which handles 125,000 vehicles a day, without imposing a toll, Shapiro added.

“I was going to say you can take me off your speed dial,” Buttigieg told Shapiro, “but something tells me I’ll be getting calls about the next imperative for transportation in this commonwealth, and I would expect nothing less.”

The transportation secretary also said on a press call that “it would have been a challenge” for Pennsylvania to find money for the Harrisburg bridge without the Large Bridge Project grants.

“It is not clear how this could get done—or if it could get done” without the federal money, Buttigieg said. “It would have had a cascading effect by devouring funding that PennDOT would have needed for other road and bridge projects around the state.”

The largest grant announced by the Biden administration, though, is $1.5 billion to replace the bridge between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. That comes on top of a $600 million grant federal officials awarded through a separate program.

Officials from both states have long argued about the best way to replace the two vertical lift bridges that carry Interstate 5 over the Columbia River with a seismically sound modern span, a project that could cost more than $6 billion. But the federal government has helped ease concerns about the cost. Oregon officials are also hoping that the federal government will award the project up to $1 billion to cover the cost of running light rail across the new span, which is also designed to handle pedestrians and cyclists. Both Oregon and Washington are expected to contribute $1 billion toward the project, and tolls would cover the remaining costs.

Buttigieg told reporters on a call that he remembered standing on the existing bridge there in February. “You could feel it vibrate. You would look up and see hundreds of tons of counterweight from a design that was state-of-the-art at the time but no longer keeps up with the times,” he said. “This is a bridge that carries 140,000 vehicles and $132 million in freight every day, but it was originally designed with the use of horses alongside automobiles.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said news that the state will receive another $1 billion to rebuild one of two bridges to Cape Cod means the state can move forward with plans to rebuild both. The federal government previously committed $372 million to replace the 90-year-old Sagamore Bridge, and the state has dedicated $700 million to the effort. The cost of replacing the Sagamore and Bourne bridges connecting Cape Cod to the mainland is expected to be around $4.5 billion.

"This is a game-changing award for Massachusetts. We’ve never been closer to rebuilding the Cape Cod Bridges than we are right now. This funding will be critical for getting shovels in the ground,” Healey said in a statement.

Alabama will receive $550 million to build a new interstate bridge in Mobile, which is believed to be one of the largest federal grants for an Alabama project, according to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office.

“It is a great day in Alabama! This federal funding will be a game-changer, not just for Mobile and Baldwin Counties, but for our entire state and region,” said Ivey, a Republican, in a statement. “This is exactly how our infrastructure dollars should be spent, and I thank the federal government for their recognition of and support for this critical project.”

Arkansas and Tennessee jointly received $394 million to replace a 75-year-old bridge over the Mississippi River between Memphis and West Memphis, Arkansas.

“Today’s announcement—the largest shared infrastructure project in our two states’ history—will help cement Arkansas’ status as a transportation and logistics leader while bringing more visitors to our state,” said Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “I’m thankful to [Tennessee] Gov. Bill Lee and the other state and local leaders who got it done.”

Rhode Island received $251 million to improve 15 bridges in Providence. Those do not include the Washington Bridge, which the state plans to demolish because of structural issues that forced the sudden closure of the crossing in December. But Bhatt said the state’s congressional delegation has championed the efforts to improve the other bridges, because Rhode Island will also need to find money to replace the Washington Bridge.

Other grants announced Wednesday include:

• $251 million to replace a bridge over the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina;
• $175 million for four new bridges carrying Interstate 95 over Lake Marion in South Carolina;
• $124 million to Oklahoma to replace a structure carrying a highway over Lake Texoma;
• $101 million to replace the Venetian Causeway Bridge in Miami;
• $88 million to replace a 1904 bridge between East Steubenville, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio;
• $72 million for two spans over Nogal Canyon in New Mexico;
• and $63 million to replace the 18th Street Bridge in Kansas City, Kansas.