McKee, Alviti address safety concerns, delays on Washington Bridge

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Rhode Island officials met today to talk about safety on the Washington Bridge.

Today’s press conference mostly focused on traffic concerns with the Washington Bridge set to open a sixth lane of traffic overnight Friday.

Officials with RIDOT stressed that at this point, their studies show a majority of bridge delays are coming from accidents rather, than actual traffic.

“In the months prior to December, the December 11th closure date, we were averaging on accident a day on or around the bridge,” said Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee.

“After the closure that jumped to two or three a day.”

Officials say it’s too early in the process to see if the new eastbound lanes have reduced that, but another lane is set to be added on the westbound side overnight Friday.

Officials are expecting initial delays but they’re hoping the weekend will make it slightly easier on commuters come Monday.

“We’ll be making whatever modifications our traffic engineers advise us to make in the work zone setup, the stripping, the signage, et cetera,” said RIDOT Director Peter Alviti.

“We’ll make those adjustments over the weekend so that the three lanes are ready for prime time on Monday morning.”

Officials said additional repaving and restriping will be needed soon after the new lane is put in place.

As far as governor McKee’s “day of reckoning,” it’s still some time out.

But they are working towards the forensic review announced earlier this year.

“Clearly we’re as our office, as governor, we’re responsible for the decisions that were made to close the bridge, and then thinking that it might be a 90-day fix, and then finding out through our engineers that it was going to be longer than a 90-day fix to get back to where we were,” said McKee.

“And now doing the RFPS, bringing a legal team, bringing our engineer team, that’s certainly something that I am totally responsible for.”

Work on the additional lane is expected to be completed by Saturday morning.

Additional tow trucks and state police are in place across the bridge to try and clear out any accidents as quickly as possible, as well as watching for speeding and distracted driving on the bridge.