EAST PROVIDENCE — Not long after the stunning collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the McKee administration started facing questions about its own bridge crisis at home.
Will the rebuilding of the Key Bridge mean less attention and fewer resources for the Washington Bridge westbound, which has now been closed for more than 100 days?
And with President Biden saying the federal government should pay the entire cost of reconstructing the Key Bridge, why is Rhode Island still looking at picking up as much as 20 percent of the cost for rebuilding the Washington Bridge westbound?
Advertisement
But there are a few important things that distinguish the Key Bridge and the Washington Bridge, experts and officials say. Those differences will influence how the federal government funds the replacement of each of them. The McKee administration, meanwhile, downplayed the idea that funding one bridge meant less might be available for the other.
For starters, the Key Bridge was struck by a cargo ship and collapsed, blocking a significant port. Six construction workers are presumed to have died.
The Washington Bridge westbound was closed when engineers found major structural problems in December. The sudden closure of an important bridge over the Seekonk River was shocking, but unfolded relatively uneventfully.
Also, the cause of the Washington Bridge’s problems hasn’t yet been established, but Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee himself has suggested that the problems should have been caught long ago. And the federal government has opened an investigation under federal contracting fraud law. Westbound Interstate 195 lanes were shifted to the separate eastbound side of the Washington Bridge, and delays remain a huge problem, but highway traffic is now bad, instead of impossible.
In other words, it’s the difference between what appears to be a freak accident in the case of the span in Baltimore, and a bridge that may have had deeper problems in the case of the one in Rhode Island. Whether those problems amount to neglect, poor design, or something else, remains to be seen. A forensic report is expected in the coming days. But the differences have all sorts of implications for how much federal aid is available when one is a sudden crisis and the other is the sudden realization that a bridge needs to be replaced.
Advertisement
“The two situations are quite different,” said Mayrai Gindy, associate dean for academic and faculty affairs and professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Rhode Island.
And Gindy is doubtful that the Key Bridge funding would mean less would be available for the Washington Bridge.
“I think there are enough funds to fund both and to take care of both,” Gindy said.
Asked to comment for this story, the McKee administration — which first noted the governor’s “heart goes out to everyone impacted by the terrible tragedy in Baltimore” — similarly said the Key Bridge isn’t an apt comparison for the Washington Bridge.
“The Key Bridge situation resulted in a life-threatening, catastrophic collapse. In the case of the Washington Bridge, a life-threatening, catastrophic collapse was averted,” Olivia DaRocha, a spokeswoman for the governor, said in an email. “We expect that the approach the federal government is taking to manage the Baltimore situation may differ from their approach to Rhode Island’s situation precisely because they are addressing different issues and outcomes.”
Advertisement
There is federal emergency relief money for transportation projects, but those are for natural disasters, like earthquakes, or catastrophic failures, like the gasoline tanker truck crash that caused the Interstate 95 bridge to collapse in Philadelphia.
Rhode Island’s situation, DaRocha said, doesn’t meet the requirements of a major disaster under the nation’s disaster relief law, the Stafford Act, “due to the fact this event was not caused by a natural disaster or other catastrophe,” DaRocha said.
Rhode Island still faces a number of questions about what went wrong with the bridge (which remains standing, but will at some point be demolished and replaced). The rebuild could last until the latter part of 2026 and cost $300 million.
Projects like this in Rhode Island are usually funded at a split of 80 percent federal with a 20 percent state match, and a top federal highway official last week described 80 percent as the “floor,” but acknowledged the state would face the possibility of delaying other projects to account for the unexpected Washington Bridge replacement.
McKee’s administration, for its part, said it was confident in the federal government’s support, and would continue to work with the congressional delegation to look for any funding to get beyond the standard 80/20 federal/state split.
“Our hearts go out to the victims of the tragic Key Bridge accident and their families,” the congressional delegation — US Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and US Representatives Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo — said in a joint statement. “Both bridges need to be rebuilt and we will continue advocating for Rhode Islanders at every turn.”
Advertisement
See more coverage of the Washington Bridge closure.
Brian Amaral can be reached at brian.amaral@globe.com. Follow him @bamaral44.