R.I. seeks to borrow $200M for road work

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island transportation officials are asking lawmakers' permission to borrow $200 million for the long-planned reconstruction and widening of the Route 95 north viaduct through downtown Providence.

The state rebuilt the southbound viaduct — a bridge carrying the interstate highway over train tracks, a river and city streets — several years ago, but plans to repair the structurally deficient northbound viaduct and add congestion-relieving extra lanes stalled for lack of money.

Then late last month, without any public announcement, the state Department of Transportation had bills introduced in the General Assembly that would authorize the borrowing needed to complete the project, which is now estimated to cost $250 million. The bonds floated to raise the money, known as "GARVEE" bonds, would be repaid with future federal transportation dollars.

"A GARVEE issuance of $200 million would ensure that RIDOT has enough funding to complete an improvement of the Viaduct and avoid replacing it in-kind or severely limiting the scope of the construction," the DOT wrote in a two-page memo outlining the project.

It added that the borrowing would leave between $80 million and $140 million for other unnamed highway projects after the Viaduct.

Asked why the borrowing was not included in Gov. Gina Raimondo's budget proposal, Brenna McCabe, spokeswoman for the Department of Administration, said the state hoped to get the financing approved before the rest of the state budget is approved (typically in June).

Speedy approval may be wishful thinking.

"There will be no fast-tracking. It's a budget item," House Speaker Nicholas Mattielo said after Wednesday's House session. "I don't know why the money is not already budgeted for the Viaduct.... It's an awful lot of money and it deserves a full review and consideration by Finance."

The cost of replacing the Providence Viaduct, one of the worst traffic choke points in New England, has ballooned over the years as the project's scope has grown. 

In late 2012, when a contract was awarded for the southbound lanes, replacing the highway spans in both directions was expected to cost less than $200 million.

But when southbound construction wrapped up in the summer of 2017, 16 months late, it had cost $105 million, and an estimate later that year pegged replacing the northbound bridge in its current configuration at $120 million to $170 million.

The DOT, however, does not want to recreate the current highway traffic pattern, which forces drivers to slow as cars getting on the highway weave into those exiting to Route 146 north and the state offices.

The current DOT plan, first unveiled in 2016 at an estimated cost of $226 million, would add new lanes and ramps to separate through-traffic from cars entering and exiting.

At that point, with the state still hopeful of landing a federal grant, the DOT also hoped to build a pedestrian bridge between the Providence Place mall and the Foundry complex, plus demolish the Dean Street ramps to Route 6 and open up land for redevelopment.

The pedestrian bridge idea was jettisoned and status of the Dean Street changes is unclear. 

At one point in 2017, the price tag for the new Viaduct design had risen to $343 million as the state pursued a public-private partnership to take advantage of Trump administration policy at the time.

The new borrowing plan comes despite construction of the state's new bridge-funding truck toll system ramping up this year and the Viaduct among the bridges slated for a toll.

Asked if the tolls should pay for the Viaduct, DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin said only that it was a "future toll location" and not among those in the pipeline right now.

St. Martin could not provide an estimate of how much the state would expect to pay in interest on the $200-million bond.

If the borrowing is approved, he said the DOT would plan to break ground in 2020 and finish the project in five years.

The bonds would take the state's GARVEE borrowing to more than $900 million since 2014. The DOT memo on the proposed $200-million bond says it is made possible partly by an additional $15 million in annual federal highway aid approved in this year's budget.

"Affordable," was how Evan England, spokesman for General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, described the plan in an email Wednesday.

A hearing on the borrowing plan is scheduled Thursday in the Senate Finance Committee.