U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in Harrisburg, Pa. Wednesday to announce a $500 million Large Bridge Project grant to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) for repairs to the Interstate 83 South Bridge that spans the Susquehanna River.
The funding is part of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Bridge Investment Program, which will provide a total of $5 billion in grants to fund reconstruction, repair and restoration of 13 “nationally significant bridges” in 16 states.
“Finding the funds needed to repair the most significant bridges in America has been a challenge that escaped past administrations of both parties, and that’s why President Biden created this dedicated program to deal with it,” Buttigieg said to Penncapitalstar.com.
The I-83 bridge, which was built in 1960 and widened in 1982, carries more than 125,000 vehicles daily, according to PennDOT.
“It’s in poor condition, and it creates bottlenecks that make drivers less safe,” Buttigieg said. “It costs people time. It makes it more expensive to ship goods through this critical corridor, so awarding $500 million to build a new I-83 South Bridge, is expected to lead to 117 fewer crashes per year and to save automobile drivers 538 million hours over the lifetime of that bridge.”
Buttigieg appeared with Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey at the site of the bridge on Wednesday morning for a press conference.
“Replacing this aging bridge will be transformational for this region and for all Pennsylvania,” said Casey at the press conference. “I-83, as you all know, is a vital artery here in south central Pennsylvania, that not only connects our communities on both sides of the river, it’s also a critical route for commerce and supply chains up and down the East Coast of the United States.”
Buttigieg said when the Biden administration took office, Pennsylvania was an example of the need for bridge repairs that had built up over decades.
“Visiting Pittsburgh in one of my first trips, I remember seeing the netting installed under the McKees Rocks Bridge in Pittsburgh to catch the pieces of concrete that would fall off of it from time to time, and that was something that was just tolerated in this country for far too long,” he said. He pointed to the 2022 collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, and the collapse of a bridge on I-95 in Philadelphia last year.
PennDOT has slated the I-83 South Bridge for replacement and upgrade, a project that is estimated to cost more than $1 billion and take six to eight years to complete.
PennDOT plans to begin work in 2026.
Source: PennLive.com, Penncapitalstar.com
