Major federal bridge grants jump-start long-stalled projects, including I-83 in Harrisburg

By Dan Vock

More than a dozen large bridge projects secured federal funding Wednesday, including long-planned connections in Portland, Oregon; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Mobile, Alabama; Wilmington, North Carolina; and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The Biden administration announced the $5 billion in grants funded under the 2021 infrastructure law, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other federal officials planning to visit the selected sites over the coming weeks.

“Today’s announcement means that millions of people will have a better and safer commute and that every American will benefit in some way – whether they use these bridges or not – from the smoother supply chains hitting fewer bottlenecks at 13 of the most significant bridges in the country,” Buttigieg told reporters.

Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt said that many of the projects getting funding have been on the drawing board for years and that without the extra federal grants, many would not have been able to get underway for decades. “It just represents a golden age of infrastructure in which we find ourselves,” he said.

The Department of Transportation credits the bipartisan law with helping to reduce the number of bridges in poor condition since President Joe Biden took office in 2021 from about 46,100 to roughly 42,400.

Buttigieg appeared alongside Gov. Josh Shapiro in Harrisburg on Wednesday to announce the $500 million the administration is sending to replace a bridge carrying Interstate 83 over the Susquehanna River. The bridge in downtown Harrisburg is more than 60 years old, and it provides a key link to the Baltimore region to the south.

Shapiro, a Democrat, joked that he owed Buttigieg and Biden an apology for the amount he has talked about the project with both of them.

“I have been a royal pain in the ass for the last year and a half talking about this I-83 bridge. They were sick and tired of hearing me go on and on about it,” the governor said. But they listened to him, Shapiro added. “This is the largest federal grant for a single transportation project in Pennsylvania history. This is a big deal.”

The federal grant will allow the state to replace the current bridge, which handles 125,000 vehicles a day, without imposing a toll, Shapiro added.

“I was going to say you can take me off your speed dial,” Buttigieg told Shapiro, “but something tells me I’ll be getting calls about the next imperative for transportation in this commonwealth, and I would expect nothing less.”

The transportation secretary also said on a press call that “it would have been a challenge” for Pennsylvania to find money for the Harrisburg bridge without the Large Bridge Project grants.

“It is not clear how this could get done – or if it could get done” without the federal money, Buttigieg said. “It would have had a cascading effect by devouring funding that PennDOT would have needed for other road and bridge projects around the state.”

Other grants announced Wednesday include:

• $1.5 billion to replace the bridge between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington;
• $1 billion to rebuild one of the bridges to Cape Cod in Massachusetts;
• $550 million to build a new interstate bridge in Mobile, Alabama;
• $394 million to replace a 75-year-old bridge over the Mississippi River between Memphis, Tennessee, and West Memphis, Arkansas;
• $251 million to improve 15 bridges in Providence, Rhode Island; 
• $251 million to replace a bridge over the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina;
• $175 million for four new bridges carrying Interstate 95 over Lake Marion in South Carolina;
• $124 million to Oklahoma to replace a structure carrying a highway over Lake Texoma;
• $101 million to replace the Venetian Causeway Bridge in Miami;
• $88 million to replace a 1904 bridge between East Steubenville, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio;
• $72 million for two spans over Nogal Canyon in New Mexico;
• and $63 million to replace the 18th Street Bridge in Kansas City, Kansas.

Dan Vock is a senior reporter for Route Fifty, where this story first appeared.