Project Managers Discuss Timeline, Funding Updates For Cape Bridges Replacement
Local and state officials have received some clarity regarding the replacement of the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.
A number of questions were posed at the Cape Cod Bridges Replacement Program Advisory Group Meeting, held April 9, at the Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School. Project managers from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and design consultant HNTB Corporation provided insight into hot button issues—including the impacts of land taking, proposed construction timeline, and the financial readiness of the project—ahead of next week’s public meeting.
Officials from all reaches of the region were in attendance, as were several state representatives and senators, regional organizations, and other constituents. Key updates were given by MassDOT project manager Bryan Cordeiro and HNTB program manager David Anderson, who projected that the latest batch of funding for the Sagamore Bridge Replacement, which is being tackled first and has an estimated $2.131 billion price tag, could be doled out by June.
“We ask all the time; we’re very anxious,” Mr. Anderson said in regard to funding from the Bridge Investment Program grant, or BIP. “The best we can tell, June would be the latest, but we don’t really know. All we can do is keep asking and keep pushing.”
Funding for the bridges is being pursued sequentially, as with the actual construction. The most recent news relating to funding for the Sagamore came in late February, which is when Mr. Cordeiro said the United States Department of Transportation briefed MassDOT on its preliminary scores for the project’s application. MassDOT requested $1.060 billion from BIP, Mr. Cordeiro said, and received an overall rating of “recommended” from USDOT.
“A score or overall rating of recommended means that we can move onto the next step for further consideration to receive funding,” he said, “However, we did have the opportunity to submit an amendment to our original application to BIP, which we did on March 14; really what the amendment addresses are any areas where we did not receive the highest rating possible. So I think between December and March, we made a lot of progress on the program.”
The key areas focused on in the amended application were environmental risks and financial plan and readiness, Mr. Cordeiro said.
Another recent development Mr. Cordeiro relayed was the Notice of Intent for the project, published in the Federal Register on February 29. What that notice really does, he said, is officially start the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review processes, which MassDOT is combining into one.
“We intend to file the first draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) as a combined document with our state review [called DEIR] of the MEPA process in the spring of 2025,” Mr. Cordeiro said, with final documents being submitted and a decision received by spring 2026. Additionally, he said, the notice of intent kicks off the DEIS scoping process and opens up a public and agency comment period.
Part of the DEIS scoping process involves “identifying a Build Alternative Retained for Detailed Study,” which Mr. Cordeiro said encompasses the “replacement of highway bridges built to modern design standards, along with a single pairing of two highway interchange approach options at each canal crossing.”
“One caveat here,” he said, “is that we’ve still not selected the preferred highway interchange junction. That’s still something that we need to work with the public agencies on, and you all, before we can determine a preferred interchange option.”
Submitting the DEIS in the spring of 2025 means including the preferred interchange option, he said, so “between now and then, we have a lot of work to do to select the preferred interchange options for each quadrant for the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.”
Town Administrator Marlene V. McCollem asked if anyone could yet speak to potential property impacts, but without a preferred alternative identified, Mr. Anderson was unable to answer.
“We don’t really have much of an ability to make strides or acquire property,” he said, “until such time as we’ve identified a preferred alternative under the NEPA process, which would be sometime between the DEIS in spring 2025 and the FEIS in spring 2026.”
However, Mr. Anderson continued, they are working with the Federal Highway Administration to be granted a “sort of early approval to move forward with these early acquisitions.”
“The only build alternative we’re moving forward to the DEIS includes the fully inboard options for both bridges,” he said, “so I think that’s something that’s higher up on our priority [list]. We’re working with our federal partners to ensure that we can proceed in a fashion that benefits everybody, not just the project schedule. I know that there are a lot of people waiting to hear back from us on what the alignments are going to be for the bridges.”
Regarding construction of the new bridges, Mr. Anderson explained that inboard construction—meaning the new bridges would be located to the west and east of the current Sagamore and Bourne bridges, respectively—was the option that seemed best suited for minimizing impacts to property.
“We wanted to get as close as we could to the existing bridge as possible but not so close that it impacted our ability to do construction,” he said, explaining that at each location, the new span farthest from the current bridge will be constructed first.
“They will get [the first span] completed and then over time start moving traffic from the existing bridge to this new structure,” he said, which will be wide enough to accommodate two lanes of traffic in each direction. “Once everybody is off of that existing bridge, we can demolish the existing bridge and construct that second twin bridge so we can get traffic flowing in each direction.”
The advisory group was informed of a number of program needs, goals and objectives as assessed by the project management team. These included operations, geometrics and safety, multimodal accommodations, maintenance/structural needs, improvement of the community’s socioeconomic fabric, access to open space, recreational and other facilities and sustainability of the built environment.
One suggestion, from state Representative David T. Vieira (R-Falmouth), was to incorporate an objective to consider the community impacts of potential infrastructure that may be constructed in the future, even if it is unrelated to the bridges themselves.
“Hypothetically,” Rep. Vieira said, “if a conversation to move an existing rail line were to happen, for the construction of a rail trail where the rail line exists over in the Bourne area, I’d like to see criteria that look at the impacts of those landing zones, so that if we’re looking to do a new spur 2.5 miles north of MacArthur Boulevard, that we don’t construct something that gets in the way of it.”
Those conversations are happening elsewhere, Rep. Vieira added, but he emphasized his desire to see a clear objective to consider the impacts of any future multimodal infrastructure developments. Environmental lead with HNTB Mark Kolonoski concurred, saying that is something being thought about.
“We are trying to recognize and understand what potential development might occur outside of the transportation network,” he said, “so absolutely, I could definitely see that exact metric playing a very important component in this bucket.”
Impacts on Bourne Public Schools, state Senator Susan Moran said, should also be taken into consideration due to its “unique” position of having schools located on both sides of the Cape Cod Canal.
The project still has a long way to go, with the projected timeframe for the entire Sagamore Bridge replacement expected to span the next decade.
“We’re very focused on trying to do this quickly, and it’s going to look like this is taking a long time but it takes a long time because it’s a huge project,” Mr. Anderson said. “We’re in the process of refining our schedule right now, but… we think that the first bridge could be done and open to traffic around 2031… and then over the span of about a year, we’ll get all the Sagamore traffic on that new bridge, and then demolish the old bridge.”
The second of the twin spans at the Sagamore location, he said, has a projected completion date of 2034. Additionally, MassDOT crews would likely work through the busy summer months, an aberration from its historical approach to construction in the region.
“For the amount of work that we have and the need to get it done,” Mr. Anderson said, “we are currently planning to work during the summer months, which MassDOT doesn’t usually do on Cape Cod.”
It is easy to get lost in the acronyms and jargon of the project, Mr. Kolonoski acknowledged, but “when you strip all that away and really look at where we are in the process and what we’re trying to accomplish within a very compressed window, it’s really important that we engage all of you and hear your feedback and then bring that when we conduct our evaluations.”
“We’re never going to make things worse than they are now,” Mr. Anderson said.
A virtual public information meeting was scheduled to be hosted yesterday, April 25, after deadlines for the Enterprise, to present the public with an update on the program. Additionally, an in-person open house is scheduled for Monday, May 13, at the Bourne Veterans Memorial Community Center on Main Street in Buzzards Bay. MassDOT will host two sessions that day: from noon to 3 PM and 5 to 8 PM. Registration and more information can be found at https://www.mass.gov/cape-bridges.