$635 million in federal grants to fund construction of a bridge from Maine to Alaska

Federal highway officials announced $635 million Thursday to repair or replace numerous old and aging bridges from Alaska to Maine, including a pair located in popular national parks.

Grants to build more than 70 small and medium-sized bridges in 19 states are the latest infusion of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill signed by President Biden in 2021. The measure directed $40 billion to bridges over five years, the largest investment in targeted bridges in decades. .

Maine will receive the most money from the latest grants, with nearly $133 million for a dozen bridges along Interstates 95 and 295. At least one of the bridges over I-95 is in poor condition, and the others are likely to fail quickly. and neither can accommodate super tall vehicles, the Federal Highway Administration said.

In Alaska, more than $13 million will help replace the Guilone Bridge in Denali National Park and Preserve. The existing bridge is not built to current seismic standards and is located near a site where a prolonged landslide worsened by climate change has forced park officials to restrict public access to the road.

In Wyoming, $23 million will go toward repairing an 85-year-old, 200-foot bridge that carries vehicles and sometimes herds of buffalo across the Gardner River in Yellowstone National Park. Without conservation, the bridge may have to be closed within five years, the Federal Highway Administration said. Restoration efforts should extend its service life by about 30 years, Wyoming’s congressional delegation said last year in a letter urging federal officials to approve the project.

The latest grants come after the Biden administration announced $5 billion for major bridge projects in July.

That’s still well short of the $400 billion that the American Highway and Transportation Builders Association estimates would be needed to do all the needed bridge repairs across the country.

About 42,000 U.S. bridges are in poor condition, with about four-fifths having problems with the abutments that support them or the superstructures that support their load, according to an Associated Press analysis of the latest federal data. Earlier this year, the AP identified more than 15,000 bad bridges that were considered in poor condition a decade ago.

One bridge that is currently in poor condition is the nearly mile-long US 49 structure over the Mississippi River, which carries traffic between Helena, Arkansas, and Lula, Mississippi. The nearly $44 million grant will help extend its life by a couple of decades while transportation officials plan to build a new bridge better designed to address the area’s earthquake risk.

Other struggling bridges receiving grant funding include the century-old Nicollet Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis and the Trenton, New Jersey, bridge that carries vehicles on the Amtrak rail line.

Some grants will fund groups of bridges, such as more than $67 million to replace 13 bridges in central Mississippi and nearly $40 million to replace nine bridges in Kansas City, Missouri.

Other grants will fund bridge projects in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas.