U.S. Sens. Warren, Markey back Mass.’ push for Cape Cod bridge funding

The Bay State’s two Democratic U.S. senators are calling on the Biden administration to green light the commonwealth’s application for $1.45 billion in federal funding to replace and repair a pair of bridges on Cape Cod.

Last month, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration said it was seeking the federal assistance to get a jump on the replacement of the Sagamore Bridge, and lay the groundwork for the rebuilding of the Bourne Bridge.

The bridge regime will “will deliver immense social, economic, public safety, and environmental benefits for a nationally significant and iconic region,” U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey wrote in an Aug. 18 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The money also will “ultimately resolve an outstanding  federal responsibility for the maintenance and safety of the Cape Cod Bridges,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.

The two bridges, which are nearly 90 years old, and are the sole access point to Cape for the 35 million vehicles that cross them annually, are “functionally obsolete,” Warren and Markey wrote.

Read More: Gov. Healey tries to lean on feds for Cape Cod bridge replacement funding

The bridges require “increasingly costly maintenance,” and rehabilitation work over the next decade is expected to cost more than $600 million, the two lawmakers wrote.

“The bridges’ structural deficiencies — a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) responsibility —  present an enormous risk to the accessibility and economic stability of the Cape Cod region, and a long term financial liability for the federal government,” Warren and Markey wrote.

Healey’s office announced last month that it was pivoting away from seeking funding for both bridge projects to just the Sagamore Bridge, State House News Service reported. The cost of the project has soared from $1.5 billion in 2019 to more than $4.5 billion today.

In an interview with the Boston Globe, which first reported the change in approach, Healey said last year’s failed grant application under former Gov. Charlie Baker was “dead on arrival,” State House News Service reported.

The state’s bridge regime is a “a prototypical project that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was designed to fund, and is a key to modernizing Massachusetts’ physical infrastructure to meet the economic, social, and environmental challenges of the 21st Century,” the two lawmakers wrote.