Thousands navigate more lane changes on the Washington Bridge

Traffic has been a significant problem in Providence and East Providence since the entire westbound side of the bridge was abruptly shuttered in December. Westbound Interstate 195 traffic is now sharing space with what used to be solely the eastbound side. In the past few months, the state has worked to widen that bottleneck and expand the number of lanes in both directions from two to three.

But the first few days have underscored some of the traffic and safety issues that drivers in Rhode Island will continue to face in the next two years or more as the westbound side of the Washington Bridge is rebuilt.

For instance, the new eastbound setup means that cars coming onto 195 from South Water Street and India Street no longer have a dedicated lane to merge onto the highway. Instead they’re merging into live traffic. Drivers have run into bottlenecks there during rush hour, which spilled over into city streets in Providence. Also, the off-ramp to Taunton Avenue in East Providence now is no longer fed by an exit-only lane, meaning drivers destined for that exit can no longer scoot over to the right and avoid the delays in the left and middle lanes.

And lastly, to make room for the temporary additional lanes, the state had to make them narrower. The middle and left lanes in the new setup are designed to be 10 feet wide, and the right lane is 11 feet wide. As a safety measure, trucks are supposed to be restricted to the rightmost 11-foot lane. But a review of live traffic camera footage from Interstate 195 eastbound shows plenty of trucks are still using the middle and left lanes, especially during rush hour. Signs are already up telling trucks to stay in the rightmost lane, but one expert said it will be hard for them to comply even if they try.

To be sure, drivers are still getting used to the new configuration in these early days. The state said it would continue to try to make improvements with things like signage and public education. The state police, meanwhile, said it would begin truck enforcement once the new configuration was open on the westbound side, too. The extra westbound lane is supposed to be done in a week or less.

Charles St. Martin, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, said in an email that the department will be looking at data over the next few days before drawing any conclusions, but so far they believe the new eastbound setup has had a “favorable effect.”

The new three-lane setup on the highway was one of the factors Providence Mayor Brett Smiley cited in his decision to remove the bike lane on South Water Street earlier this month.

Christopher Maxwell, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Trucking Association, said the association has been working well with RIDOT throughout the bridge closure. Truckers are professionals, and they will continue doing what they have to do to navigate the new lanes safely, Maxwell said.

“The consensus is, we may have to hog two lanes with our hazard blinkers on,” Maxwell said, adding later: “We’ll manage it. We’ll manage by negotiating it or cheating into the middle lane with our hazard lights on. At the end of the day, we don’t have time to complain. We’re not getting any handouts "

One of the potentially even bigger challenges — literally — is wide and overweight loads. Those needed permits even in the before times. The state won’t allow them on the Washington Bridge for the time being, but at some point may look at whether it can allow wide loads overnight.

Heavy trucks are also banned from detouring around the highway closure through Providence’s East Side, under a new weight limit ordinance passed by the Providence City Council and signed into law by Smiley last week.

In the first week of the new law, Providence Police detail stationed at the Providence side of the Henderson Bridge have rerouted 170 trucks coming over from East Providence, according to spokesperson Josh Estrella. No citations have been issued yet.

Maxwell said the premise of the restrictions in Providence raised concerns, but “in reality, trucks for the most part don’t belong going that route unless they have business over there.”

Jeffrey Freudberg, a retired Department of Transportation engineer who stressed he was speaking in his private capacity, not as a licensed professional engineer, told the Boston Globe that “safety is going to be an issue for the next two or three years.” That runs counter to assurances from Alviti that the setup won’t present “any particular danger or reason to worry.”

“There are documented safety concerns about using narrow, 10-foot lanes on interstate highways,” Freudberg said.

There’s also the question of how much capacity the new lanes will actually add to the highway. Given all the obstacles, Freudberg said, it’s not 50 percent more capacity, as Alviti had said publicly. There might be 50 percent more lanes through parts of the bridge area — three lanes is 50 percent more than two lanes — but not 50 percent more traffic capacity on those lanes.

Trucks in particular will have a hard time even trying to comply with the new rules keeping them in the right lane going eastbound, Freudberg said. If they’re coming to 195 east from Interstate 95 southbound, they’ll start off toward the left, and only have a short distance — maybe a half a mile or so — to make it over to the right. That’s no easy feat in a large truck during rush hour, Freudberg said.

Beyond that, the eastbound side has poor pavement, potholes, and conflicting markings and signs, Freudberg said. The new configuration is a work in progress, Freudberg noted, but it’s a work in progress that thousands of people are using right now.

“I recognize the critical need for more capacity,” Freudberg said in an email, “but it should be carefully and thoughtfully balanced against safety impacts.”

Steph Machado contributed to this report.

See more coverage of the Washington Bridge closure.

Brian Amaral can be reached at brian.amaral@globe.com. Follow him @bamaral44.