Dive Brief:
- The Federal Highway Administration awarded more than $26.5 million in bridge planning grants to more than two dozen projects around the country on Wednesday, the agency announced.
- The planning grants help states create a pipeline of projects eligible for federal construction dollars, Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt told Trucking Dive in an interview Wednesday.
- “Bridge projects can be pretty complex,” Bhatt said. “They have a lot of potential environmental considerations, and so we want to get states a leg up in getting these projects ready, so that they are eligible for future consideration.”
10 largest bridge planning grants
| Amount | Recipient | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| $2.3 million | Minnesota | Developing strategic asset management plans for seven high priority bridges across the State’s Trunk Highway System. |
| $2 million | Texas | Determining preferred alternatives for bridge design and rehabilitation of nine bridges across the Buffalo Bayou in Houston. |
| $2 million | Alaska | Planning and environment linkage studies and project development for four critical bridges along the Dalton Highway and Koyukuk River drainage corridor. |
| $1.7 million | Georgia and South Carolina | Planning and environment linkages study of about 2.5 miles on the Interstate 85 corridor to evaluate replacement or rehabilitation of six rural bridges. |
| $1.7 million | Florida | Study of 11 water crossing bridges to determine the most effective approach, repair or replacement. |
| $1.6 million | Kansas | Planning and environment linkages study to explore options along a 5.5-mile segment known as “Canal Route” on Interstate 135 and the surrounding local transportation network in Wichita. |
| $1.6 million | Maryland | Planning and environment linkages study of the Interstate 68 Viaduct in Cumberland, Maryland. |
| $1.6 million | New York | Planning grant to analyze the Grand Island Bridges against the regional transportation network’s current and future needs. |
| $1.5 million | Oklahoma | Planning and environment linkages study for the full reconstruction of six bridges in West Oklahoma City. |
| $1.1 million | Washington | Planning study to upgrade the only crossing that connects the City of Bothell downtown core to the communities south of the Sammamish River. |
Source: Federal Highway Administration
Dive Insight:
Upgrading infrastructure is critical to improving highway safety for truckers and other drivers, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a July interview with Trucking Dive. Planning grants are a key part of the process.
“It starts with the infrastructure itself, making sure that bridges and roads are in good condition,” Buttigieg said, “making sure that they are safely designed — and often, creating solutions through a better designed interchange or a new piece of infrastructure that mean that, for example, trucks don't have to go through neighborhoods the way they might be doing.”
The planning grants follow the federal Department of Transportation’s rollout of $5 billion to fix more than a dozen aging bridges across the country with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The Bridge Investment Program created by the infrastructure law has awarded a combined total of $7.4 billion to 78 projects in 38 states, according to FHWA.
The funding has enabled the launch of 10,200 bridges projects nationwide, according to the agency.
The grants will strengthen supply chains, Bhatt said, noting the one in Georgia and South Carolina will help make bridges that textile trucks once crossed stronger for the trucks that now haul automotive shipments across them.
“The bridges in these areas aren’t able to support the weight of the trucks,” Bhatt said.
