DOT opens applications for $10B competitive funding opportunity for large bridge projects greater than $100M
Of the more than 617,000 bridges connecting roadways throughout the United States, about 46,000—or 7.5 percent—are considered to be ‘structurally deficient’ and badly in need of repair, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ annual Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. The United States Department of Transportation has worked hard to reduce that number over the last few years, and is continuing its efforts by opening applications for nearly $10 billion in funding through the competitive Bridge Investment Program’s “Large Bridge Project” category, which funds projects larger than $100 million.
“Bridges are more than steel and concrete—they connect communities, move vital goods, and make it easier to go about our daily lives,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a statement about the funding opportunity. “These grants will help communities across the country modernize their bridges, and make it easier for everyone to move quickly, reliably, and safely to their destinations.”
The Bridge Investment Program is a competitive, discretionary grant program that creates opportunity for all levels of government to be direct recipients of program funds, according to a statement about the initiatve. The program focuses on the replacement, rehabilitation, preservation and protection of existing bridges across the country.
Updates this year includes updated merit criteria to give applicants more direction; a new cost benefit analysis tool that can assist applicants complete requirements; a new screening tool that can give immediate feedback if anything is missing in the initial application; and the ability to apply for four fiscal years of funding—from 2023 to 2026—with a single application.
Funding comes through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which invests a total of $40 billion over five years into the nation’s bridges, “to help ensure that some of the nation’s most important bridges remain safe and operational, meet current and future traveler needs, support local economies, strengthen our supply chains, and create good-paying jobs across the country,” according to a statement about the opportunity.
While this round of funding is only available to projects more than $100 million, applications will soon open for a separate initiative encompassing those less than that.
This past fiscal year, the large bridge initiative invested $2.4 billion in the planning and construction of 37 bridge projects across 29 states.
Awarded projects included: $1.385 billion to rehabilitate and reconfigure the existing Brent Spence Bridge between the interconnected Kentucky and Ohio communities on either side of the Ohio River; $144 million to rehabilitate four bridges over the Calumet River on the Southside of Chicago; $73 million to replace the 85-year-old, bascule-style Lafayette Avenue Bridge over the Saginaw River—an important link in the transportation network for Michigan’s Great Lakes Bay Region; $51.2 million to replace six bridges in South Carolina that range from 68 to 101 years old; and $15.1 million to replace six off-system bridges along the John Nolen Drive Causeway, which is a major artery that travels across Lake Monona and into downtown Madison, according to the statement. A number of large bridges also received planning grants, including the Cape Cod Bridges in Massachusetts and the I-5 Columbia River Crossing connecting Washington and Oregon.