When fixes aren’t good enough anymore

The concrete supports that hold up the driving surface of the Route 6/Route 10 interchange over Westminster Street in Providence have their own support system, a series of braces that were installed 15 years ago.

Now those braces have deteriorated to a point where they, too, need to be replaced, said Peter Alviti Jr., director of the R.I. Department of Transportation. “These are temporary supports we’re having to repair,” he said. “We’re repairing the temporary repair.”

Fixing the interchange itself, a series of 11 bridges that merge Route 6 and Route 10 into a connector to downtown Providence, will cost at least $500 million.

That’s money the state doesn’t have. The project illustrates a multibillion dollar problem facing Rhode Island, where state and federal funding has not kept pace with the needs of a decaying transportation system.

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The state lacks sufficient resources for ongoing maintenance, Alviti said, never mind improvement to the transportation system, which includes bridges, roads and public-transit options. And that reality is a drag on the state’s economy, the No. 1 priority for the Raimondo administration.

A BRIDGE CRISIS

Sixty-one percent of RIDOT’s fiscal 2015 budget of $448 million is derived from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has in recent years not provided long-term financing to any states.

The state’s share comes from three main sources, including annual state appropriations, and license and registration fees. But most of the revenue is generated by a now 34 cent per gallon, state gasoline tax that is producing less income over time, as consumption declines.

The federal money, meanwhile, comes with strings attached.

The Federal Highway Administration wants all states to have fewer than 10 percent of bridges rated as structurally deficient, and until they get there, it will restrict how they can spend federal dollars. Thus because so many of Rhode Island’s bridges are rated by the federal government as structurally deficient – 22.7 percent, or 174 out of 766 in 2014 – and in need of replacement, the FHA will not allow the state to use federal money to make temporary repairs. In fact, Rhode Island has a higher percentage of its bridges deemed structurally deficient than any other state, Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia. Eighteen other states are above the federal threshold with the Ocean State.

But at the rate Rhode Island is spending on repairs with the funds it can generate itself, the deficiency ratings will worsen. In 10 years, 47 percent of the state’s bridges will be deficient, Alviti said, based on a state analysis.

“We have a crisis on bridges,” he said.

One byproduct of Rhode Island spending most of its available resources on bridge repairs is little money for road paving as well.

Alviti, appointed by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo in February, was among the state leaders who unveiled the proposed RhodeWorks program in May. The program would introduce highway tolls for commercial vehicles to finance repairs and improvements to the state’s transportation system.

Initially proposed for most heavy trucks, it was scaled back a few weeks later to focus only on tractor-trailers, and to limit the number of tolls per day paid by companies. Opposition to the tolling program quickly rose among trucking companies, and although approved by the Senate, the legislation stalled in the House.

House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello recently said he is open to a new proposal, but did not feel the original plan addressed concerns raised by companies that would be affected by the new tolls.

PAYING IT FORWARD

State officials have grappled for years with the issue of how state transportation improvements are financed. At least four legislative commissions or study panels have examined the issue in the past decade.

The most recent commission, in January 2014, issued a report that illustrated how the state’s infrastructure needs were “under-resourced by tens of millions of dollars annually.”

Twenty years ago, the state established a dedicated highway improvement fund, intended to provide money for improvements on a pay-as-you-go basis, a fund that is supported by the gasoline tax.

Over the years, the gas-tax disbursements have changed. In fiscal 2010, under Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, the state stopped diverting gas-tax revenue to the general fund, and increased the amount heading to the R.I. Public Transit Authority.

Under Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, state fees were increased on registrations and licenses, helping to finance the state’s match for federal transportation dollars. In the past, the state borrowed the funds for its local share. The increases were phased in over three years, beginning in 2014.

Also in 2014, 3.5 cents of the state’s gas tax started heading to the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority, to offset the loss of the tolls removed from the new Sakonnet River Bridge when it opened in late 2012.

Under Chafee, the gas tax also became indexed for the first time to inflation, which resulted in a 1 cent increase this year.

How much will it cost to fix the problems?

The original RhodeWorks proposal would have provided $700 million for projects through a revenue bond to be repaid by toll revenue. As approved by the Senate, the slightly smaller-scale program would raise $500 million.

The program would address 152 of 224 structurally deficient bridges identified by the state and federal governments. But while the FHA list tracks bridges that are at least 20 feet long, of which there are 766, according to the feds, the state is responsible for 1,152 spans.

Grow Smart Rhode Island, a nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization, was among the supporters of the initiative. After years of talk, the proposal represented a concrete step toward identifying a sustainable revenue source for transportation improvements, said John Flaherty, the organization’s deputy director, who leads its transportation policy reviews.

The gasoline tax, which now funds much of the state’s share of transportation spending, is problematic, he said. Rhode Island already has a high gas tax relative to other states, such as Massachusetts, Flaherty said. In part because vehicles are becoming more efficient, the yield in revenue is decreasing. Relying on the gas tax alone to generate the revenue needed for infrastructure would require “an astronomical” increase, he said. “We’ve argued against any further increase in the gas tax. We recognize Rhode Island has to be competitive. Right now, it’s 7.5 cents higher than in Massachusetts.”

The price of addressing all of Rhode Island’s infrastructure, including paving and public transportation projects, is in the billions.

Over the next 10 years, the DOT has projected a need for $4.7 billion in capital expenses to fix deteriorated state and federal roads and bridges. That figure includes $1.1 billion for bridges, $570 million for paving projects, $240 million for traffic improvements, $80 million for transit, $51 million for drainage improvements, $128 million for bicycle enhancements and $282 million for planning.

A NEW WAY

If just $500 million for bridges is made available – the amount proposed under the Senate version of the RhodeWorks program – the state would be able to compress the time it takes to reach the federal threshold of having no more than 10 percent of its bridges “structurally deficient.” Instead of taking until 2032, Rhode Island could reach 90 percent sufficiency on bridges in 2025, according to a DOT analysis.

Because the repairs would be made more quickly, and less expensively, the state would save nearly $1 billion by compressing the time to 10 years instead of 17, he said.

Whether or not tolls are established, Alviti is re-prioritizing projects using an “asset management” technique that he said will save money over time. Initially, however, it will require more upfront spending.

Under asset management, he said, repairs are made to bridges and other infrastructure before they’ve deteriorated to the point where more costly fixes are required. If this is done consistently, over time, maintenance costs are reduced because they are not requiring more substantive repairs, or the periods between repairs are lengthened. So, a bridge that lasts 100 years might be repaired four times, instead of five.

He used the analogy of a screen door with a broken hinge. Spend money to replace the hinge, or wait and replace the door when it falls off and is damaged.

ONE BRIDGE TOO FAR … GONE

Upon taking office, Alviti was faced with the reality of the Ocean State’s crumbling bridges. He ordered an accelerated round of bridge inspections to take stock of the current conditions. The bridges whose inspections are tracked by the federal government – those at least 20 feet long – are evaluated biannually by the state. All other spans are evaluated every four years.

The inspectors evaluate the condition of the deck, or driving surface, as well as the superstructure, which supports the deck, and the substructure, which anchors the bridge.

The most recent state inspections were conducted in 2014.

The Park Avenue railroad bridge in Cranston, which carries vehicle and pedestrian traffic over the Amtrak rail line, was inspected in September 2014, and has been inspected annually for the past three years. The bridge, which is among those in Rhode Island that are structurally deficient, was rated by the inspectors as being in fair condition overall, according to the September 2014 report.

In June, structural engineers revisited the bridge as part of the stepped-up inspection schedule, and determined the span was in “imminent danger of failure,” according to Alviti.

The bridge, which dates to 1906, was last repaired in 1991, a reconstruction of the deck which then was expected to last 15 years. The bridge, which carries 17,000 vehicles a day, is a major east-west connector in Cranston, providing direct access to both Interstate 95 and Elmwood Avenue.

Alviti said he made the decision to close the bridge after conferring with Raimondo. That decision was second-guessed across the media landscape, because House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello’s law office is down the street from the bridge. In fact, Mattiello called for a public accounting of the decision, given its inspection history.

The closure and detour of traffic immediately affected local businesses, such as Elite Barbershop, where Kenny Elderkin, a barber, had just hired another barber to handle walk-in traffic. The walk-in traffic evaporated.

Over the next 28 days, the time it took to complete an emergency repair to the bridge, Elderkin said he had four clients as walk-ins. “And two of them said it was because they saw me on the news, and felt bad for me.”

The shop next door, APB Vapes, sells supplies for electronic cigarettes. After the first week, owner Brandon Grandmaison said he had a friend create his own detour signs, and affixed them to points around the state’s detour route.

“If you don’t know where you are, that detour was confusing,” he said.

John R. Hess & Co., a chemical supply company, stopped running its trucks over the Park Avenue Bridge two years ago, in part because the right turn from Wellington Avenue was difficult to navigate, but also because operations manager Roger Blanchette didn’t like what he saw beneath the bridge.

He could see the deterioration. “Why ask for a problem?” he said.

What the local business owners learned recently, and were surprised to hear, is the $400,000 repair to the bridge is a temporary fix.

“This is the classic example of a ‘worst-first’ approach,” Alviti said. “Meaning, you wait until something becomes completely deficient. You wait for them to come to the front of the ‘worst’ and then we do just the worst ones.”

HOW BAD IS BAD?

That bridge is among the 244 that Rhode Island deems “structurally deficient.” This is a term that means, by FHA definition, that they are restricted to light vehicles, or require rehabilitation and close monitoring.

Another class of bridges is “functionally obsolete.” These are bridges that are not built to current standards, which may have narrow passages or lanes, or other design flaws. Rhode Island has 255 bridges that fall into that category, according to the Federal Highway Administration list.

In the Providence metropolitan area, the national transportation research nonprofit TRIP reported that 33 percent of the roads in urban areas had “poor” pavement conditions, and another 47 percent had “mediocre” driving conditions. The average driver pays $516 annually in vehicle costs for driving over roads in need of repair, the organization found.

The ranking has less to do with climate, and more to do with the age of a transportation system and how frequently it is used. While the organization did not analyze how states finance improvements, maintenance of resources is critical, said Rocky Moretti, the organization’s director of policy and research. “Typically, what we see in these cases, is the most critical factor is having the resources in place to make the improvements that are needed,” he said. “Clearly, Florida is doing something right.”

The lack of a good, quality transportation system is an added business expense. Driving over bumpy, poor roads leads to higher vehicle maintenance costs. Companies take that into consideration when considering where to locate.

In proposing the tolls, which would provide RIDOT with a sustainable, use-based fee, Raimondo said the Ocean State would be in line with surrounding states, including all but Connecticut in the Northeast. All have tolls on trucks, and Connecticut is seeking them.

“We shouldn’t have to wait until a bridge collapses before we take action,” she said. “I’m more than a little concerned about that. We have the worst bridges in America. Right now, one in four bridges in Rhode Island is structurally deficient, and if we stay on our current path, half of our bridges will be deficient in the next 10 years.

“We’re using our money right now to put Band-Aids on these bridges, patching them up because that’s all we have the money to do, is patch them up. We should be rebuilding them,” Raimondo said. n

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1 COMMENT

  1. Oh, the millions over the years that have been wasted on construction boo-boos, cost overruns buddy-buddy contracts and plain old mismanagement. Add to this that the smallest state supports two separate road authorities RIBTA and RIDOT and all the duplication extra bureaucracy, and overlap that goes with them. RI would be so much farther ahead if the state ran things right but now we will be asked to pour more money into our same dysfunctional surface transportation effort. Lets re-org. with some of that dough if Gina’s plan is to succeed.