Using the Plainfield Pike bridges in Johnston as a backdrop, Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti recently kicked off the agency’s 2019 construction season, announcing 77 active projects across the state with a combined cost of $715.6 million.

Gov. Gina Raimondo’s RhodeWorks program, which is aimed at renovating and restoring the state’s roads and bridges, is entering its fourth year. Alviti said this year’s slate is particularly ambitious, with 10 percent of the bridges across Rhode Island seeing some form of construction.

“What that means for travelers is they’ll see more construction on our roads and bridges than any time in Rhode Island DOT’s history,” he said. “The good news is that as each year of this RhodeWorks program goes by, people are seeing the difference that RhodeWorks is making in the conditions of our roads and bridges.”

The ailing state of Rhode Island’s infrastructure, and particularly its bridges, has long been an issue. A CNBC report from last July ranked Rhode Island last in the country in infrastructure, saying 23.2 percent of the state’s bridges were deficient and 70 percent of roads were “in poor or mediocre condition.” The former number was backed up in an American Road & Transportation Builders Association report from this year.

Alviti said this year’s projects are aimed at making a dent in that figure, as the 77 announced projects include 177 bridges. He also noted that the $5 billion program has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in project management, engineering, accounting and finance.

“We don’t want to be at the bottom of that list for long,” Alviti said. “We knew that as we were entering into the RhodeWorks program that … the state of deficiency of our bridges is going to take some time to get us out, but every bridge that we put in, every project like this is one step further in that direction.”

Alviti spoke of the “project manager culture” that has been cultivated at RIDOT. The project manager approach, he said, provides a point person on each initiative who oversees a range of concerns, from budgetary oversight to traffic impacts and political implications.

“It’s one person who now has all of that in their wheelhouse … The person owns it, and they take a particularly personal interest in making sure that theirs is not the project that gets slammed in the press or has a traffic tie-up or that falls behind in the budget,” he said. “There’s ownership, and that’s a big difference.”

Alviti also highlighted the adoption of an “asset management methodology” that is “data-driven” and focuses on ensuring the “longest useful life [of a bridge or roadway] at the least cost.” Using the methodology, he said, will save approximately $900 million over the course of RIDOT’s existing 10-year plan.

Alviti said currently, more than 90 percent of RIDOT’s projects are “on time, on budget.”

“The management structure is working,” he said.

RIDOT’s ongoing work includes a number of projects in Cranston.

The largest will involve the replacement of four bridges, and preservation of 11 others, along Route 37 from Route 1 in Warwick to Pontiac Avenue in Cranston. The work has an estimated total budget of $58.9 million, and is slated to begin this summer and conclude in fall 2022.

According to RIDOT, the Route 37 bridge work will result in intersection improvements to “relieve traffic congestion and bottlenecks in the Pontiac Avenue area, including Sockanosset Cross Road, back to Route 37 Westbound and I-95 South.”

Alviti noted there will also be “important safety improvements in and around the Pontiac Avenue interchange” in Cranston.

Perhaps the most notable Cranston project on RIDOT’s docket is the replacement of the Park Avenue railroad bridge, which carries one of the city’s busiest west-east roadways over Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor tracks between Wellington and Elmwood avenues. The effort is scheduled to begin this summer and conclude in summer 2021. Its cost is estimated at $9.2 million.

“Still in design and coordination with Amtrak, a full closure of the bridge is anticipated for Summer 2020 for about three months,” according to information from RIDOT. “The bridge deck and approaches will be resurfaced. The existing superstructure will be removed and replaced with a 71-foot single span, steel superstructure, with two 12-foot travel lanes and two 6.5-foot shoulders for a curb to curb width of 37 feet.”

The railroad bridge – which is more than 110 years old – became the subject of controversy in 2015 when it was ordered closed for emergency repairs in the midst of the debate over the RhodeWorks legislation at the General Assembly. Its deteriorating wooden structure has been continually problematic – as have the water main, gas main and electrical cables running nearby.

“We’re going to finally fix that with a long-lasting bridge,” Alviti said.

Other local projects include:

A series of crosswalk and sign enhancements are planned at various locations in Cranston, Warwick and other communities through the Highway Safety Improvement Program. The work is scheduled to be done between fall 2020 and summer 2022 and cost $1.4 million.

An estimated $4.6-million project focused on the I-295 bridges known as “Bridge Group 9” in Cranston and Johnston is currently underway and expected to be completed in spring 2020. The work will include “concrete repairs, spot bridge repainting and micromilling and paving across the bridge deck and approaches.”

An estimated $22.6-million project focused on the superstructure replacement of two steel bridges carrying I-295 over Plainfield Pike is currently underway and is scheduled for completion in spring 2021.

Work on 29 bridges in Cranston, Warwick and several other communities – known as the “Central Rhode Island Bridges” – began in the winter and is scheduled for completion in summer 2020. The total estimated cost of the work – which will involve preserving the bridges through “bridge washing, concrete masonry repairs, joint repairs of replacement, steel repairs and re-painting,” according to RIDOT – is $12.6 million.

RIDOT also continues to work on the bridge carrying Park Avenue over the Pocasset River between Dyer and Gansett avenues. A detour for eastbound traffic is scheduled to remain in place until later this year, with work continuing until spring 2020.

“Our goal is simple – to get Rhode Island to the state that we have the best bridges and roads in the country and we’re one-third of the way there,” Alviti said. “This year will be a huge stride forward.”

Alviti said the goal is to impact drivers as little as possible, and he said he was a “victim of his own devices” just recently.

“I traveled … during rush hour from Attleboro to Warwick along [Interstate] 295 here, but I’m happy to say through the entire traveling there were some slow periods of travel, but it was always moving. And that’s our goal, to keep the traffic moving through our work zones,” Alviti said.

He urged patience from Rhode Islanders on the road, saying that thus far drivers have been accepting of the construction conditions as the state repairs its aging infrastructure.

“I think they know that, while it’s providing them some inconvenience now, in the long run, it’s going to make things safer and easier to travel through Rhode Island,” Alviti said. “We ask them just to hang in there with us for a few more years and we’ll turn all of this beautiful new infrastructure over to them to use and enjoy.”