On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced it would provide a total of $2.1 billion to four nationally significant bridge improvement projects in five states.
The funding, part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Bridge Investment Program, is the first round of Large Bridge Project Grants that will invest nearly $40 billion over the next five years to help repair or rebuild 10 of the most significant bridges in the country as well as thousands of smaller bridges.
“Safe, modern bridges ensure that first responders can get to calls more quickly, shipments reach businesses on time, and drivers can get to where they need to go,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “The Biden-Harris Administration is proud to award this historic funding to modernize large bridges that are not only pillars of our economy, but also iconic symbols of their states’ past and future.”
The program will provide $1.385 billion to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to fund rehabilitation and reconfiguration efforts for the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Northern Kentucky and Ohio across the Ohio River. The project will separate I-75 traffic from local traffic by building a companion bridge to the existing bridge and reconstructing eight miles of interstate approaching the bridge on both sides of the river, including replacing 54 additional bridges. The project will improve the nation’s second-worst truck bottleneck in the country on the bridge that carries more than $400 billion in freight per year.
The program will also provide $400 million to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District in California to replace, retrofit and install structural elements on the Golden Gate Bridge to increase the bridge’s resiliency against earthquakes; $158 million to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to rehabilitate the northbound structure of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge over the Thames River; and $144 million for the City of Chicago to rehabilitate four bridges over the Calumet River on the Southside of Chicago.
“These first Large Bridge grants will improve bridges that serve as vital connections for millions of Americans to jobs, education, health care, and medical care and help move goods from our farms and factories,” Deputy Transportation Secretary Polly Trottenberg said. “And over the next four years, we will be able to fund construction for the pipeline of shovel-ready projects we are creating through Bridge Planning Grants.”
The FHWA also announced it had given the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $1.6 million to advance planning work supporting the replacement of the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges over the Cape Cod Canal to improve traffic flow between Cape Cod and mainland Massachusetts.