MassDOT OKs $1.1B for Cape Cod Bridge Replacement Program

The Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation’s board of administrators accredited an roughly $18.5-billion, five-year capital funding plan, together with $1.09 billion for the long-anticipated Cape Cod Bridges Program. At 90 years outdated, the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge—the one highway crossings over the Cape Cod Canal—are each thought-about functionally out of date by MassDOT. 

Many of the plan’s fund for changing the 2 bridges would go towards the part one building of the brand new Sagamore Bridge. The bridges are owned by the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers, however underneath the phrases of an settlement between the state and the Corps, MassDOT shall be liable for the alternative tasks and can personal, function and keep each bridges as soon as they’re full. The deliberate twin-arch bridges would additionally embody shared-use paths for pedestrians and cyclists. 

Changing each bridges is estimated to price greater than $4.5 billion, in line with media reports, together with $2.1 billion for the Sagamore. The state has already secured $2.3 billion for the venture, together with a number of federal grants and appropriations in addition to state bonds.

The Corps estimates that sustaining the prevailing bridges in the course of the subsequent 50 years would price $775 million. Preconstruction on the brand new bridges began earlier this yr and building is scheduled to start out in 2027, in line with media reports. 

The capital funding plan additionally allocates greater than $1 billion for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, together with funding for energy system upgrades.  

Along with the Cape Cod Bridge and MBTA funds, the capital plan additionally allots $424 million for the I-90 Allston Multimodal venture; $276 million for the I-195 to Route 18 interchange rehabilitation in New Bedford; $210 million for the continued I-90/I-495 interchange enhancements in Hopkinton and Westborough; $241 million to switch the Kernwood Avenue Bridge over the Danvers River and the Corridor-Whitaker Drawbridge over the Bass River in Beverly and Salem; $269 million to assist the Rourke Bridge alternative in Lowell; $176 million to switch the Arthur J. McKenna Bridge in Springfield and West Springfield; and $149 million to advance tasks that assist West-East Rail.

There’s additionally funds for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and native roadways and bridges, in addition to $14 million for runway reconstruction for the Beverly Regional Airport.

“Each transportation funding is an funding in folks—connecting them to jobs, colleges, healthcare, and one another,” Monica Tibbits-Nutt, MassDOT secretary and chief govt, mentioned in a statement. “We now have a powerful five-year capital funding plan that displays our shared priorities and offers us the instruments to maintain constructing a extra related, equitable Massachusetts.”