A disagreement between the R.I. Department of Transportation and the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council over who can use two proposed bridges along the East Bay Bike Path is threatening to delay the long-awaited $24 million project just as it finally seemed to be on track.
And “active transportation” advocates say cyclists and pedestrians who use the popular bike path are caught in the middle.
Just over a year ago, cycling and pedestrian mobility advocates rejoiced when, after years of closure and uncertainty, the future of the East Bay Bike Path bridges over the Barrington and Palmer rivers in Barrington seemed all but settled.
But after a groundbreaking ceremony and the removal of the old, dilapidated bridges, the project has hit an unforeseen snag over the width of the bridges and who can use them.
The CMRC, which has oversight on construction projects along coastal areas, recently postponed approval of the DOT’s bridge designs, primarily over concerns that the proposed 14-foot-wide bridges, which would be narrower than the old ones, would not provide enough room for cyclists, pedestrians and people fishing from the bridge.
The DOT had initially said fishing off the new bridges would be prohibited but removed this stipulation after the council argued that such restrictions violated variance criteria related to shoreline access.
But no design changes were made by the DOT, and the CRMC withheld its approval after expressing worries that bikers, walkers and fishers would be bumping into each other because there are only 2 feet of space on either side of the bike path along the proposed bridges
The regulatory holdup caught bicycle advocates by surprise. Kathleen Gannon, chairperson of the Rhode Island Bike Coalition, says she thought the project had a green light more than a year ago. And Gannon expressed annoyance that her group has yet to see a detailed plan for the bridges.
“As is typical … we haven’t seen the design, and we haven’t been asked to look at it or comment on it,” Gannon said, and the DOT was “kind of moving ahead with the design for their own purposes that I don’t really understand.
“As popular as the East Bay Bike Path is, it seems like we should be making it wider, not narrower,” she said.
The two bridges are crucial river crossings along the popular bike path that runs more than 14 miles between Providence and Bristol.
Temporary detours have been constructed over the busy Route 114 bridges, but a permanent solution is important for the future of the bike path, Gannon says.
“Residents and business owners have been really, really wanting the bridges to be connected,” she said. “The longer we stay with the inadequate workaround that has been put up, the worse it is for everyone. … Any delay continues to put people in danger and disrupt the usage of the East Bay Bike Path.”
DOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin III told PBN that the agency is “taking the comments made at the last [CRMC] meeting and we are working on solutions to those issues.”
So far, the agency has spent about $4 million on design and demotion, St. Martin says. The project, which had a tentative completion date of 2025, is now scheduled to be completed by summer 2026.
“RIDOT has every intent to complete the project,” he said. “This is a normal and customary progression of a design-build project.”
RIDOT is run by incompetents.