Is the Hinsdale NH/Brattleboro Vt Route 119 Bridge In Trouble?

Shaheen: ‘Good news’ that Sewalls Falls Bridge is open, but funding picture is the ‘bad news’

Jeanne Shaheen said the federal government’s reluctance to invest in infrastructure is at least partly to blame for the length of time it took to build the new Sewalls Falls Bridge in Concord.

Shaheen, a Democratic U.S. senator and former governor, noted at an opening ceremony of the bridge Tuesday that it was in 1994, when she was only a state senator, that she began working to replace its 1915 predecessor.

The complications that caused such a lengthy process were numerous, said state Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Boynton. There were historical and environmental implications, as well as conservation easements and funding to be attained.

But Shaheen focused on the federal funding for the project that was promised but delayed in reaching New Hampshire.

“The federal government really didn’t do what we said we were going to do at the timetable that we said we would,” Shaheen said. “It shouldn’t take that long to get this kind of a project done.”

Mayor Jim Bouley added with a smile that he had a full head of hair when the planning process began.

Bill Cass, the assistant commissioner of the state’s Department of Transportation, said his colleagues planned in 2003 that the bridge could be constructed by 2007, “but there was a little note in the margin that said it could be delayed two or three years as they worked through some of the issues.”

In the end, it was Aug. 9, 2015, before construction began, nearly a year after the historic connector between routes 3 and 132 was closed.

The federal Highway Trust Fund was healthy and growing for several decades until recently, according to the Congressional Budget Office, when spending began to outpace taxes collected on gas and other transportation-related products and activities. Between 2008 and mid-2015, the federal government had to transfer more than $65 billion from the general fund to cover highway expenses.

The start of construction on the Sewalls Falls Bridge was delayed in 2015 amid the shortfall. The city ended up cutting a deal with the state DOT, which administers the federal grant money, that would allow Concord to start building and be reimbursed with federal dollars when they became available, according to a Monitor report at the time. A federal grant paid for 80 percent of the $11 million project.

Shaheen visited the bridge back then and lamented that there had been 32 short-term extensions of the Highway Trust Fund in the previous six years, without the adoption of a long-term solution.

That’s the “good news, bad news” story of the bridge funding, Shaheen said Tuesday.

“I’m thrilled to be here to celebrate the good news of this story today and I pledge to you that I will continue to work on the bad news of getting those investments at the federal level,” she said, “so we can continue to see these kinds of projects move forward for the state of New Hampshire.”

The bridge opened to traffic last week. For a time before the earlier bridge closed, drivers had to take turns crossing one at a time for fear that it couldn’t accept the weights it once held.