PROVIDENCE – R.I. Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti Jr. on Thursday defended the agency he has led since 2015 and layed blame for the 2023 failure of the Washington Bridge on the private contractors hired to conduct inspections and maintenance.
By turns combative and evasive testifying under oath before the House Committee on Oversight and the Senate Committee on Rules, Government, Ethics & Oversight, Alviti faced pointed questions from former U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha, who was tapped by General Assembly leadership to conduct the hearing.
Alviti characterized RIDOT as chiefly a management, rather than a construction and engineering, agency.
“They did not do what their contract said they were supposed to do,” he said of the contractors. “We can only act on the information provided to us.”
But a 64-page report by Illinois-based engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc. released in September found that officials could have recognized the impending problems and identified key figures who should have been aware of the developing issues with the bridge.
Asked by Cunha if since the bridge’s closure he had sought copies of the original plans for its construction, Alviti said he couldn’t recall. He declined to speak to any findings or reports that took place before he began his tenure.
At one point, he couldn’t remember the name of RIDOT’s state program manager, the latest of “several” he said have held the role charged with oversight of the state’s bridge inspection program.
“Sounds like a fairly important position,” said Cunha.
Reading verbatim from RIDOT’s own policy manual, Cunha alluded to language suggesting that regardless of any mistakes made by contractors, the ultimate responsibility “cannot be delegated” and remains with the statewide program manager.
Alviti said RIDOT has hired eight different companies since December 2023 to vet the previous inspections of the Washington Bridge. It has spent over $200 million on bridge inspections over the last decade and $3 million on the Washington bridge alone.
Asked if these redundancies and inspections were adequate given that they didn’t prevent the crisis, Alviti deferred to the state’s legal position in its civil lawsuit filed against 13 companies that they were not.
However, Cunha highlighted a section of the WJE report that suggested the corrosion of the fractured steel rods that led to the bridge’s failure had likely happened well before they were discovered.
Asked whether any changes should be made to the department’s internal controls, Alviti defended the private contractor model.
“The redundancy that we build into these has prevented this from happening in every other case except for this,” he said.
Before the hearing began Sen. Mark P. McKenney, D-Warwick, said the latest inquiry should go beyond a single bridge, alluding to deeper issues within RIDOT management and culture.
“The state is looking to fix a transportation problem,” he said. “But you can’t fix something if you don’t know what the problem is.”
R.I. House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale in a statement said, “We’ve yet to see the 'day of reckoning' promised by Gov. Daniel J. McKee." Chippendale called the bridge failure “one of the most economically damaging events in modern Rhode Island history.”
”Accountability is long overdue,” he said.
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.
