Our bridges are in a heap of trouble

About 40,000 vehicles cross the Sakonnet River Bridge, which connects Tiverton and Portsmouth, most days — more than the combined traffic of the Pell and Mount Hope bridges.
 
In 1996, I lived in Tiverton and used that bridge regularly. Because of safety concerns, the state Department of Transportation lowered the weight limit, and children on school buses were loaded into vans for safe passage across the Sakonnet, out of an abundance of caution.
 
Now, the DOT will finally solicit bids for a new Sakonnet Bridge. Kazem Farhoumand, the state’s acting chief engineer, says the new bridge should be completed by 2011, at an estimated cost of $155 million to $189 million. Yet even this development is overshadowed by more worrisome news about the state’s bridges.
 
The ProJo reported last week, for example, that state transportation officials have begun recalculating the designs of a small part in 15 Rhode Island bridges, because of a federal warning that a design flaw in a similar part may have caused the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota last year.
 
Meanwhile, in October, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said the governor had concerns about how the DOT was managed over the last 20 years, and the state police and US Attorney Robert Corrente were asked to review a $9 million consulting contract given to the step-nephew of Edmund Parker, who has since retired from his post as chief engineer at DOT.
 
While Major Steven O’Donnell of the Rhode Island State Police says Parker was not shown to be a target for any investigation, since no criminal wrongdoing was found, the governor has repeated his concerns about a cloud being over DOT. 
 
The DOT has also paid the state police almost $60,000 to monitor traffic over the ailing and weight-restricted Pawtucket Bridge on I-95. Reports by Jim Hummel at ABC6 show seemingly overweight trucks trying to sneak over the span.
 
Asked about the risks to the bridge posed by these trucks, Farhoumand says, “One or two trucks won’t do any harm” Yet Major O’Donnell confirmed Hummel’s report that in the two months before Christmas, more than 300 state police fines were handed out to offending trucks, many of them for overweight violations.
 
Farhoumand argues that the police lack “the manpower to monitor the bridge” 24/7. Taxpayers have nonetheless already paid $60,000. So, I ask, at what point does the bridge get shut down for safety reasons, and when does DOT stop throwing good money after bad?
 
“I don’t have any proper way of answering that.” Farhoumand replies.