Cape Cod bridges could be replaced by late 2030s, officials say

While Massachusetts officials celebrated the recent nearly $1 billion in federal funding which will launch the replacement of the Sagamore Bridge, they clarified that the project to replace both bridges to Cape Cod could extend into the late 2030s.

So far, the state has secured $1.72 billion of the estimated total cost of $4.5 billion to replace both bridges. This includes the $933 million federal grant announced last week. 

Governor Maura Healey said at a press conference Tuesday that the state now has enough funding to move forward with rebuilding the Sagamore. She wants “shovels in the ground by 2027, if not sooner.”

“We can say with certainty now that we have the funding that we need to move forward. We’re going to rebuild the Sagamore Bridge, and we’re going to continue to work for every dollar available to rebuild the Bourne Bridge,” Healey told reporters. “Pedal to the medal on the next stages of this.”

Jonathan Gulliver, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation highway administrator, told reporters that the Sagamore Bridge construction could take eight to 10 years. 

“We’re going to look to fine-tune that and narrow that down over the next couple years as well go into permitting,” Gulliver said.

The Bourne Bridge’s construction period is also eight to 10 years and could start as early as 2029, The Boston Globe reported, if there is additional federal funding.

“We made a decision to chase one, then chase another,” Healey said about the Bourne. “Tomorrow, we get after the Bourne Bridge.”

Last year, Healey announced a phased approach to secure funding and to rebuild the 90-year-old Cape Cod bridges, which are functionally obsolete, one at a time.

Healey was joined at the press conference Tuesday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Edward Markey, and Congressman Bill Keating who have been advocates for the federal funding. The group said the project will bring 9,000 union jobs, which Markey said is one of the state’s largest union projects in history.

Previously, the Biden administration pledged $372 million in December towards replacing the Sagamore Bridge, which averages nearly 17,000 more daily trips than the Bourne. In March, Warren, Markey, and Keating secured $350 million more in federal funding for both bridges. 

“When I was first elected 14 years ago, this was a prime initiative that we were talking about,” Keating said. “We wanted to see the day the right decision was made, not to just put band-aids on crumbling bridges but to have brand new replacement bridges. That day is today.”