RANDOLPH, Mass. — More than 460 bridges in Massachusetts are in poor condition and will stay that way without further investment, the state’s secretary of transportation said.
The Patriot Ledger on Oct. 21 reported the state’s Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said at a meeting this week that the number of bridges in poor condition has stalled.
“While they’re not getting worse, we’re sort of stuck,” Pollack said. “They were quite flat from 2019 to 2020 because we are waiting on the authorization of additional resources.”
A report from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association flags a bridge in Randolph as a particular concern because of its poor structural condition and its high vehicle traffic, the newspaper reported. Around 200,000 vehicles a day cross the bridge on Interstate 93 north over Route 24 north.
A proposed $1.25 billion fund to invest in bridge maintenance has spent more than a year moving through the state’s legislature and has not yet been approved, the newspaper reports.
In July, the state’s department of transportation signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of an estimated $1 billion project to replace the two bridges that connect Cape Cod with the rest of the state. Those bridges are more than 80 years old.
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