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HARRISBURG -- PennDOT is proceeding with six of the smaller interstate bridges originally targeted for repairs paid through a deal involving the addition of tolls.
The three biggest bridges -- the I-83 bridge over the Susquehanna River in Cumberland County, the I-79 bridge in Allegheny County and the Girard Point bridge carrying I-95 in Philadelphia -- are now being considered a separate package, Larry Shifflet, deputy secretary of planning for PennDOT, told the Senate Transportation Committee.
The smaller bridges in the initial package include four on I-80, over Canoe Creek in Clarion County, over Nescopeck Creek in Luzerne County, over the North Fork Redbank Creek in Jefferson County, and over the Lehigh River in Luzerne County. The other two bridges in the first package include an I-81 bridge in Susquehanna County and an I-78 bridge in Berks County.
PennDOT estimates it will cost about $70 million a year to make the "availability payments" that were supposed to be covered by the proceeds from tolling. He said that the cost of the annual payments to cover the work on the three bigger bridges would likely exceed $220 million.
Shifflet made the comments during a hearing to explore how PennDOT might pay for the work in the wake of Act 84, which allows the bridge repairs to move forward but bars PennDOT from tolling the bridges.
PennDOT announced in March that it had selected a team of contractors -- led by Macquarie Infrastructure Developments LLC, described by Transportation Committee Chairman Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R-Cambria, as an "Australian conglomerate" -- to do the major bridge repairs.
Langerholc on Wednesday expressed an interest in backing out of that deal, in light of the legislation barring the state from paying for the repairs with the proceeds from tolling. Langerholc was the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 382, the legislation that became Act 84, when Gov. Tom Wolf signed it into law in July.
Langerholc said that the state could pay for the bridge repairs using a bond, and then break the nine projects up into smaller groups in order to make it so that Pennsylvania contractors could compete to become the lead contractors instead of working as subcontractors.
He said he'd like to see PennDOT produce a comparison showing the costs of doing the work through the P3 arrangement, as PennDOT proposes, against the costs of using a bond, authorized by legislation approved by the General Assembly.
Shifflet said that PennDOT has already paid for about $20 million for preliminary work on the bridge projects. Langerholc said he would seek to ensure that the preliminary work is still used so that spending isn't wasted.
Before Act 84 became law, the tolling plan had been stalled by a pair of lawsuits. Shifflet said that those lawsuits are now resolved and PennDOT has resume work on planning for the projects.