The state of Vermont received a federal grant of $25.8 million earlier this month to replace the Readsboro Bridge, which passes over the Deerfield River in Bennington County.
Located around five miles from the intersection of Route 100 and Route 8, the bridge is crucial infrastructure for connecting members of the Readsboro community to each other and the rest of the state. Its “wear and tear” has been a concern for a while, according to Raymond Eilers, Readsboro’s selectboard chair.
“It’s kind of the main bridge in the area here,” said Eilers. “The town would be split in two if we didn’t have that bridge.”
The funds, a result of the 2021 federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, were awarded through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program. Vermont’s congressional delegation — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt. — identified the bridge as a priority and sent a letter last March to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urging federal funds be allocated to the project.
“The replacement of the Readsboro Bridge will boost southern Vermont’s critical infrastructure, improve safety and accessibility, and make Readsboro more resilient to extreme weather,” the joint letter stated, according to a Jan. 10 press release issued by Welch’s office.
Jonathan Griffin, the state transportation agency’s project manager, said Vermont had already set aside over $33 million of funding for the Readsboro Bridge, built in 1954, because it is in critical need of repair, with a poor deck and eroding steel structure.
“The condition of the bridge was definitely the driving force behind the need for prioritizing this one as a project. The old bridge had served its useful life,” said Griffin. “Its condition is deteriorating, and it’s just time to either make a significant investment in the bridge or to replace it, and we determined the replacement was the more cost effective and beneficial solution.”
But, Griffin said the federal grant will offset the cost of the project and free up money for the state to spend $25.8 million on other infrastructure repairs around Vermont. The agency has not yet determined what projects might benefit from the redistributed funds, though, he said.
The New York-based company Harrison and Barre Bridge Contractors will begin the three-year bridge replacement process next month, Griffin said.
The town and state had been in communication for about a decade and considered several plans before settling on the current project, Eilers said
Along with replacing the bridge, Griffin said the project will widen the shoulders of the road and create a walkway, making it safer for both pedestrians and drivers while preserving its historic character.
One of the state transportation agency’s main goals was to improve the foundation and use non-erodible materials to make the bridge more climate resilient and mitigate the impact of future flooding events, he said.
Griffin said the plan includes innovative practices that have so far only been used for a couple bridge projects in the state. The features, like stay-in-place concrete forms and fiber-reinforced polymer bridge drains, will reduce costs and extend the life of the replacement bridge, he said.
“There’s a lot of uniqueness about the bridge itself that make it a really fun project to be part of,” said Griffin. “It’s an important project to the community, too. Without this bridge, the regional detours are tremendously long, so it’s also nice to deliver on these projects for our towns.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: State receives $26 million in federal funds for critical Readsboro Bridge replacement.