I-195 Washington Bridge Debacle-Another Raimondo Legacy (Thanks Gina)
How the Washington Bridge Points to Much Larger Infrastructure Failures in Rhode Island.
Some subscribers outside Rhode Island might not know of the Washington Bridge. But as a brief overview, it is the bridge that carries I-195 from East Providence to Providence, and opens a lane for travel between Fall River, New Bedford, & Cape Cod, as well as Providence & the surrounding areas.
It is a crucial point of connection between Rhode Island and the greater New England travel network. Without it, a 10-minute commute can become an hour commute or more. Which is exactly what happened when the bridge had to be shut down in December.
The westbound side, as we learned, had a very dilapidated section in danger of collapsing. That side had to be shut down, leaving only emergency vehicles to travel over it. A potential calamity was avoided, which we can all agree was the prudent choice.
The response afterwards, though, has been more controversial. Governor Dan McKee probably could have been more forthcoming and responsive to the situation when it suddenly emerged last month. He almost certainly could have better handled his initial relationship with the press.
Late last week word came that the bridge might have to be torn down on the westbound side completely. Instead of repairs being finished in 3 months, as was the plan originally, worst-case scenario is that it could take much longer to get it all done.
Many Rhode Islanders have recently complained about Governor McKee’s responsiveness to and empathy for the challenges people experience now as a result of the partial bridge closure. Some have further alleged a slow walk response to oversight calls. Now, especially as relates to Governor McKee, we should be cautious in assigning blame at this time.
However, regardless of how legitimate the complaints against the Governor are, Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) Director Peter Alviti might very well be at risk of losing his own job as a result—if only because of public pressure.
For all the shortfalls of the current response, the I-195 Washington Bridge debacle actually tells a far bigger story about how we got here.
Several news sources in Rhode Island have learned the U.S. Department of Justice is now investigating the circumstances of and the response to the Washington Bridge closure. What is more significant is that they are also looking into the management of RIDOT going back to 2015, during Governor Gina Raimondo’s first term.
The U.S. DOJ, we discovered, opened the investigation based on a False Claims Act request. In other words, the DOJ has found reason to investigate whether contractors defrauded state government in a way that compromised the integrity and safety of state infrastructure and transportation—like the crucial Washington Bridge East Bay artery.
Granted, these would be private contractors at fault. Still, state government should not have been blind to these concerns, and had every reason to keep an eye on the contractors. In 2016, then-Governor Raimondo implemented RhodeWorks—a program to rebuild roads and bridges across Rhode Island using truck toll funds. The impacts of this program are at best mixed, and inconsequential and useless at worst. Whatever funds came out of the truck tolls have been supplanted by a mountain of legal fees in the range of $9 million, according to The Hummel Report (run by local journalist Jim Hummel).
In insult to injury, the truck tolls have been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge. And Rhode Island still remains in the bottom 5 of the entire nation today for infrastructure & transportation in recent CNBC rankings.
As local media previously reported, the results were very mixed, with many projects over budget and finished past projected deadlines.
But private contractor mismanagement and local government incompetence is most infamous to several Rhode Island communities. For example, in Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood (not too far from where I live), the 6-10 highway connector reconstruction was plagued by soil contamination issues. The private contractor in that case is now facing federal & state charges for making false statements to investigators about the dumping of contaminated materials for that project.
Criticism was even mounted on contractors with the Washington Bridge itself. In fact, a similar closure of highway lanes on the bridge occurred in 2018 after consulting firm AECOM provided faulty guidance to the Raimondo Administration. Ironically, one of Raimondo’s top aides, Matthew Bucci, later came to lead that very same consulting firm.
But this story is symptom of a problem much bigger than RIDOT. It points to the story of Gina Raimondo’s entire career in Rhode Island. It is about the questionable government practices that existed in the Raimondo Administration—and in state government at large. These practices have ramifications to this day.
And those practices are familiar elsewhere in Rhode Island. Like in questions about Raimondo’s possible personal financial benefit surrounding Point Judith Capital’s role in the 2011 pension reform push. While Point Judith Capital raked in even more money from the state, as did so many venture capital firms and hedge funds with ties to Raimondo’s family or allies, workers and retirees were squeezed to the brink between the COLA cuts and the vast underperformance of state pension investments made back in 2011.
The health of the state employee pension system remains questioned as the contracts with venture capital, hedge funds, and private equity remained sealed by the state’s retirement board—seemingly with Raimondo’s blessing.
Other questions have also been left unanswered. Questions about revolving doors and conflicts of interest in the pension reform campaign, and about state education initiatives in her tenure (her husband was a nationally well-known advocate for McKinsey & Co’s charter school lobby). As to the latter, the expansion of charter schools in the state’s subjugation of Providence Schools (and Rhode Island schools as a whole) is not just some mere coincidence.
It is also not just some mere coincidence that then-Governor Raimondo privatized state healthcare, making major Medicaid cuts with the backing of pharmaceutical allies and industry giants like Purdue Pharma (yes, that Purdue Pharma). Nor was the purge of prominent environmental advocates at RI’s Coastal Resources Management Council with fossil fuel lobbyists after aggressive lobbying for projects in state by companies like Invenergy, Samson Energy, and Enron. Nor was the expansion of RI corporate welfare for large businesses and private sector campaign contributors a coincidence. It instead was just another part of her budget austerity and privatization agenda.
Although the track record of inaction in Rhode Island speaks for itself on issues like infrastructure, transportation, housing, and more, it further underscores the scandalous examples of negligence, mismanagement, and abuse in our most vulnerable institutions (like Eleanor Slater Hospital, the United Health Infrastructure Project, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, the Department of Corrections, and Rhode Island Housing). Issues like these raise more questions of whether fraud and malfeasance was committed, whether state-and federal money-was misappropriated, whether the state failed to comply with federal laws, whether political allies benefited beyond the appropriate guardrails, and whether other violations of the law took place to the detriment of our fellow Rhode Islanders.
These events only highlight why Gina Raimondo should not be trusted in her position as US Commerce Secretary, handling such consequential issues as AI regulation (especially when her husband was on the board of an AI company with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, and is still employed with AI businesses).
Instances like the Washington Bridge debacle only bolster the case for federal oversight and Congressional scrutiny of state government under former Governor Raimondo.
If you want to endorse such a proposal, share the MoveOn and Change.org petitions and tag the slogan #BringCongresstoRhodeIsland. And show up to the State House grounds on March 2.