RIDOT Weight Restricts 13-year-old Lafayette Bridge, Ramps Up Truck Weight Enforcement – tonight at RI State House

RI Trucking Association Statement: DOT Weight-Restricts 13-Year Old Bridge, Ramps Up Truck Weight Enforcement   

Davisville Bridge, completed in 2007, is posted with a restriction due to structural deficiency while state, which sells overweight permits, continues redirection of blame with new legislation increasing truck weight fines 

On Friday, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) placed a 20-ton weight restriction on the Davisville Bridge in North Kingstown forcing trucks to reroute onto an already truck-restricted school route. The bridge takes traffic using Devil’s Foot Road over Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. 

Meanwhile, the RI House will, this evening, introduce legislation calling for increased fines on overweight trucks – a further deflection of blame over infrastructure woes from RIDOT to the trucking industry. According to RIDOT, truck weight – not a long and well-documented history of poor materials, workmanship, oversight and maintenance – is the cause of bridge deterioration and the basis and justification being cited by Governor Raimondo and RIDOT for truck-only tolling portion of the RhodeWorks program. 

“If this (the Davisville Road deficiency) isn’t yet another smoking gun as to what ails our state’s roads and bridges, I don’t know what is,” said Chris Maxwell, president of the Rhode Island Trucking Association. 

Built in 2007, the Davisville Bridge is remarkably young to be restricted, but has exhibited signs, according to RIDOT, of a “fabrication defect” in its concrete box beam structure.  This bridge, just 13 years old, is being posted when the lifespan of a bridge is generally 5-7 decades, not less than 1.5 decades.

A visual bridge inspection, an antiquated and subjective process in itself according to the Federal Highway Administration, took place two years ago and this defect was discovered.  RIDOT has continued to monitor the bridge closely.  Not far away, the structurally-deficient LaFayette Road Bridge, completed in 1988, is undergoing a full replacement at a cost of $9 million.  

“The audacity of RIDOT to increase truck weight fines at the very same time that these glaring acts of malfeasance and incompetence come to light is the ultimate in hypocrisy and an insult to taxpayers,” he added. 

In Rhode Island, trucks are legally-allowed to haul weights up to 104,800 pounds – roughly 25,000 pounds over the federally-allowed weight of 80,000 pounds.  Carriers, both in and out of state, can purchase annual reducible load overweight permits from the very entity that is furthering the “truck damage” narrative – RIDOT.

“Bridge damage from trucks and, more specifically overweight trucks, is not the problem,” said Maxwell.  “If it was, the state wouldn’t be peddling permits that legally allow these weights only to pocket the revenue rather than putting it where it belongs – back into bridge maintenance and monitoring technology.”              

In terms of commerce, the Davisville Bridge weight restriction will have little impact on trucks as it is a sparsely travelled route for large commercial vehicles.  However, those trucks using Devil’s Foot Road are currently being rerouted by RIDOT through a posted “No Through Trucking”, “School” zone which should raise concerns about safety.