Peter Alviti Jr., the four-year director of the R.I. Department of Transportation, is overseeing 77 active construction projects through the RhodeWorks program.
Proposed by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, and adopted by the General Assembly in 2016, the infrastructure-improvement program includes a controversial highway toll on large commercial trucks and is designed to improve the condition of bridges across the state.
The 10-year goal would reduce the number of structurally deficient bridges to fewer than 10 percent of the total. The program is visible across the state, with major construction affecting the 6-10 connector into Providence, the westbound span of the Washington Bridge in Providence and East Providence, which carries Interstate 195, and access ramps to the Newport Pell Bridge. In total, $1.5 billion in contracts have been awarded, according to Alviti.
Beyond RhodeWorks, Alviti expects construction to finally begin this year on a new Providence bus hub. The design, expected to be announced soon, may not include as much private development as originally hoped for.
Alviti cited “an unwillingness of some of the private-sector developers to … make considerable investment” in commercial office space or housing.
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LONG VIEW: Shifting to an asset-management approach allowed state transportation officials to create a pipeline for funding 120 projects over the past four years, according to RIDOT Director Peter Alviti Jr.
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Give us an update on the number and percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the state. Over the last three years of RhodeWorks, we’ve preserved or reconstructed about 191 bridges, as part of the program, and invested $219 million in new bridge construction.
The way that we set up RhodeWorks was a departure from the traditional approach to fixing infrastructure. We said we wanted to go from 25 percent structurally deficient bridges in our inventory to 10 percent or less, in a 10-year window. [Editor’s note: RIDOT reports 23 percent of bridges are still deficient.]
We used the “asset-management” approach, rather than “worst first.” Most people would think we would take the worst bridges and do them first. And that’s precisely how we got into this kind of deficiency problem in the first place. An asset-management approach to fixing our inventory of infrastructure is to identify the life cycle of every asset that we own: every bridge, every pipe, every roadway and pavement or surfaces. [We] determine what their useful life cycle is and the cost of repairing them along that [time period].
What happens with assets, any asset, is there is a long period of time where the cost of repairing them is zero. And that increases gradually. Then you get to a certain point, where pavement, or a pipe, begins to become deficient, and the cost begins to increase rapidly to fix it. The idea is to reinvest in every one of our assets before the cost begins to increase disproportionately.
There are special circumstances. Over the last year I’ve had 40 incidents of critical bridge reports. … We almost bring it to immediate attention.
So, you are now approximately one-third of the way through the 10-year window. Are you preparing for the criticism that you’ve accomplished less than one-third of the bridges? We started answering that criticism from day one. Some of the criticism that comes … was, “Why are you doing that bridge, which is not structurally deficient?” A lot of the smaller projects that we do, are at that point of the beginning of the increased [cost]. We are repairing them before they get to be three or four times the cost of that bridge, within a very short time. I think those questions are subsiding now because the public is beginning to understand and see the results of it.
Of the 191 bridges that you’ve repaired or replaced, what are the most notable? Of the ones that we’ve started, the 6-10 interchange. In total, in the first four years, during the governor’s first term, [the] awarded contracts totaled $1.5 billion. Some of them are ongoing. The 6-10 itself is nine bridges, of which seven are structurally deficient. That’s been going on for about six months. This is really an example of why RhodeWorks came to be. We’re well into the design-build contract for that, a $410 million project in and of itself. We expect in three years to have 90 percent of the new structures open.
The idea is to reinvest in … our assets before the cost begins to increase disproportionately.
What is the status of the 6-10 work? A lot of what is happening now is demolition work, [which] we can do during the winter months. Construction, which involves concrete pours and those kinds of things, we have to wait for warmer weather. A lot of it is coming down. We’ve created temporary diversions in and around the construction area that gave us the room to demolish half of the structures. People think in terms of RhodeWorks [about] tolls and bridges, but that’s only part of the story. The adoption of the asset-management approach to managing our infrastructure and renewing it was an outcome from a management change at [RIDOT].
We completely blew up the management here and reorganized into a project-management kind of organization. The old construction-engineering approach would never have allowed us to have a pipeline for projects that got out $1.5 billion in the first four years. [Editor’s note: For the construction season, RIDOT will have 77 active projects with a construction value of $715.6 million.]
[Over the past four years], we did 120 projects. Projects can include more than one bridge. In that, there were 191 bridges, 62 active projects … totaling more than $700 million. There are ways through proper project management that you can schedule projects … allowing you to make the most out of the summer months. Because of these changes … 90 percent of the projects are on time and on budget.
The Henderson Bridge, which connects Providence to East Providence, will be rebuilt with newly sourced federal dollars. Why is that structurally deficient bridge now a priority? The Henderson Bridge is one of the largest structures. That single bridge represents about 12 percent of our total deficient-bridge deck area. It’s a very large structure. It has been structurally deficient for years. … There are three lanes on each side, of which, one lane on each side is cordoned off. Because they’re so deficient, we can’t allow you to drive on it. They’ve been blocked off for years. The remaining two [lanes] in each direction, we’ve been maintaining. Just during the last few years it’s cost … [several] millions of dollars every year. It was scheduled to be done in three years.
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IN CHARGE: R.I. Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti Jr. said the state has preserved or reconstructed about 191 bridges as part of the RhodeWorks program over the last three years and has invested $219 million in new bridge construction.
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Did the original schedule relate to the volume of traffic on that bridge? There are about 20 different factors in asset-management analysis, having to do with everything from socioeconomic impacts, to the number of drivers using it, to the actual state of deficiency, relative to cost. The decision was made for us to preserve it over the next few years and put it in a place where the funding would also be available for it. It is one of the last, largest structures that we have in our inventory. We’re doing Washington Bridge now. We’re doing the 6-10 interchange. We’re in the process of getting ready to bid this summer for the Viaduct North Bridge, [which carries Interstate] 95 north in front of the Statehouse, which is our next largest structure. [RIDOT intends to replace this deficient bridge and make other improvements to alleviate daily traffic congestion and improve safety, by building dedicated lanes for on- and off-ramp traffic. Estimated cost is $250 million.]
Is the Henderson Bridge the least traveled of the three? Yes. Compared to, for example, the Washington Bridge and the Viaduct, and I-195 west. The Washington Bridge going east was fixed several years ago. [The Henderson] Bridge was originally designed with six lanes. It has an interchange at the easterly end of it that has the six lanes abruptly ending. It was originally designed to be a part of a highway system that would be extended from that point through various neighborhoods and into I-195. There was never any funding for it. They built the Henderson Bridge with its six lanes in 1969. It’s grossly oversized for the amount of traffic going over it.
For the Henderson Bridge and the Pell Bridge, what will happen with the cleared land? In the case of the Pell Bridge ramps, we’re realigning all of the ramps in that area to create a commercial-residential-industrial, mixed-use kind of parcel availability. We’re freeing up dozens of acres. [In] East Providence and Providence … I’ve already had discussions with [the mayors]. We’re going to be working, their two cities and our agency, to develop a vision for what that’s going to be. Also, the bridge itself. We don’t need three lanes in both directions, so whatever we build will be smaller. We also see the need to bring bike and [pedestrian] features onto the new structure. … Right now, it’s kind of dangerous. On either side, we’ll be linking that to the existing bike and pedestrian features.
Will its replacement impact the Washington Bridge project? No. The Washington Bridge project is going to be going on for the next two years. It’s the westbound lanes.
Right now, RIDOT has two gantries that are operational for the truck tolling. What is the status of the remaining 10 gantries and why was there a delay in getting them installed? There are two things that caused a delay. The first thing was, before we pressed the button to open the first two locations, we decided to take a step back and have them operate for a while, get the systems that support them and make sure they were working at 100 percent accuracy. We delayed it. We had a certain amount of time allotted for that testing. We decided to extend that, just to make sure that the day that we turned the switch on, everything would work exactly as it was supposed to.
The other thing that caused the delay was the environmental-assessment process for these gantries. It went pretty simple with the first two. … They were in a location where there were minimal environmental factors. The other 10 locations we’re doing all at once created a more-complex environmental assessment. The review at the federal level took more time. We did get all that approved in December. We gave the notice to proceed for the next 10 locations. And they’ve already started that work.
You will see them becoming visible and becoming operational in the May to June time frame. Then you will see a rapid succession of them, in a one-year period.
Did the lawsuit filed against the project by the Rhode Island Trucking Association have any impact on the construction? No.
In terms of revenue, the first few gantries have been producing more revenue than was initially expected. But overall, because you only have the two, the revenue for RhodeWorks is less than initially expected. What is the deficit and how does that affect the plan? We’ve made the adjustments in the 10-year plan to account for … the delay of that revenue. The good news is the target of meeting the 10 percent sufficiency in the 10-year period, by 2025, is still on track.
Ninety percent of the projects are on time and on budget.
What else had to be reshuffled? In terms of revenue from the tolls, because we’re required to use that money for bridge projects, the only impact it had on the program was the bridge projects. It was a small movement of many projects we were able to absorb that revenue loss into.
The Henderson Bridge project was moved forward because of new federal money? Well, then came [U.S. Sen. Jack] Reed. He created a bill for [$475 million] … and created it in a way that the money in particular needed to address deficient bridges. And by the formula they created, garnered us [nearly 15 percent, $69.5 million]. It allowed us to move Henderson up. What that will do, is a lot of the bridge projects that came after will also move up too. It impacted a full 10 years’ worth of programming.
What is the status of the Providence bus hub? Why has this not moved forward? We have been pursuing a … public-private-partnership approach to delivering the bus hub. With the thinking being that, in addition to a basic bus hub, we might be able to garner some additional economic activity around it. And we invited a host of private companies to take part in a competition for that. And that is winding down. A few of them dropped out and now we’re at the end of the process, with one of the companies that remained. We’re still in the procurement process. But parallel to that, we’re also developing a plan B that would not get us as robust private development but would get us the necessary intermodal transit center.
What is the problem with the [more expansive] public-private partnership? Some of the issues involved with it are an unwillingness of some of the private-sector developers to, at this point, make considerable investment in commercial kinds of office space … and/or housing. It’s pretty much a market [issue]. There is a market that’s already being met. The volume that a project like this would have added to it, it’s questionable whether the market is there for that. It’s a promising market. The question is whether we’re at critical mass right now to do that.
Are you going to wait or move forward with the bus hub? What we’re doing is we’ll be making those decisions in the next few weeks … as to what exactly the bus hub will end up looking like. The plan B … we’ve already begun to develop a concept as to what that would look like. The central theme of moving the bus hub out of Kennedy Plaza … is one of the highest priorities. It may not have the look and feel of a large-scale facility.
What is the timeline? The governor very much would like us to bring it to a conclusion and start construction during this year.
What is the status of the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge? It was 10 years in the design process before we got here. Through various kinds of input and collaboration, it went from a $2 million project to a [$21.9 million] project. It’s our job now to execute it. And we’re doing that. It will be ready in June. Twenty million [dollars] would have fixed a lot of deficient bridges. It was a project that was promised to people. It is going to be absolutely beautiful when it’s completed. … But it’s a very expensive little bridge.
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Macdonald@PBN.com.
