Road work. Bridge work. Plans for runway work. More road work.
That’s essentially the wrap-up of Rhode Island’s transportation situation so far this year. Motorists here have been enduring myriad road work-induced traffic jams associated with the relocation of Interstate 195 – the massive construction project in the heart of Providence that will move an elevated highway built in the 1950s away from the center of the city.
In the latest roadwork associated with the mega-project, workers for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation permanently closed the Gano Street on-ramp to Interstate 195 east in Providence on June 26.
Beyond Cash Donations: How New Forms of Giving Are Transforming Not-for-Profit Accounting
Evolving Funding Landscape for Not-for-Profits Not-for-profit organizations are being asked to do more with less,…
Learn More
“With help from the media, and the teal and white trailblazing signs, motorists should be able to find their way around Providence and East Providence with relative ease,” said RIDOT Director James R. Capaldi in a statement.
Further down the highway, workers recently began pouring concrete to build the piers that will support a moving drawbridge on a new Brightman Street Bridge, spanning the Taunton River between Somerset and Fall River in Massachusetts.
The bridge project has suffered a series of delays since work began several years ago. The bridge was originally scheduled for completion this year, but the target date has been pushed back several times – first to 2003, then to 2005, then to 2006.
Now, in the latest delay, it’s 2007. The latest delay was caused when two of the concrete piers that support the bridge structure on the Somerset side were built incorrectly and had to be torn down.
Overall, the massive highway relocation of Interstate 195 is on schedule and on budget, and traffic caused by construction is not worse than was anticipated, according to the project’s manager.
“The work has to be done in sequential order, and we’re following that plan to put the contracts out. Things are happening as planned,” said Lambri Zerva, RIDOT’s design project manager for the relocation project.
The Interstate 195 relocation is scheduled for completion in 2008, but future funding of the project has become a concern amid Rhode Island’s budget crisis. Twelve Rhode Island transportation projects got an injection of $25.5 million this spring, when Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed secured the appropriations in the federal government’s 2003 budget.
The money will help to pay for, and in some cases entirely fund, 12 transportation projects throughout the state. The federal funding will also reduce budget woes in Rhode Island’s state coffers and at the state’s twin transportation agencies – RIDOT and the Rhode Island Public Transportation Association.
In other transportation developments, rising gas prices and spiking automobile insurance rates have driven up the cost of operating a vehicle at the fastest rate in three years, according to a study published in April by the Automobile Association of America (AAA) Southern New England. The average cost of driving a new car in the United States has increased 1.5 cents from one year ago to 51.7 cents per mile, according to AAA’s annual study.
This spring, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce began urging officials at the Rhode Island Airport Corporation to expand one of the runways at T.F. Green Airport to at least 9,000 feet. The longer runway, the Chamber said, will improve safety at the airport and allow T.F. Green to stay competitive in the increasingly competitive airport industry in New England.
“We need to be positioning ourselves for the future,” said Richard Plotkin, chairman of the Chamber’s Transportation Committee. “We see what’s happening. We see that we are getting far more competition from other regional airports. Expanding the runway to a minimum of 9,000 feet increases safety and allows us to remain competitive.”
Currently the airport corporation, which owns and operates T.F. Green, is considering plans to eventually lengthen both of the airport’s runways to 7,500 feet to serve existing destinations. A coalition of residents and some businesses near the airport have vowed to block any runway expansion, saying that the longer runways will bring increased traffic, noise and pollution to the area.
Additionally, the first ferry business that takes passengers to Martha’s Vineyard from Rhode Island launched from Quonset Point recently. The ferry offers a way to bypass summer traffic jams at the Bourne Bridge at the entrance of Cape Cod – good news for the hoards of tourists and vacationers who travel every summer from southern New England and New York to the Vineyard.
R.I. Vineyard Fast Ferry’s boat The Millennium, a 128-foot high-speed catamaran,
ferries travelers from Quonset Point to Martha’s Vineyard in 90 minutes – chopping
up to three hours off the trip for motorists who have had to drive to New Bedford,
Hyannis and Woods Hole in Massachusetts to catch ferries to Martha’s Vineyard.
