State awards contract to fix dilapidated highway interchange

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — The contract for rebuilding the route 6-10 connector in Providence was awarded Thursday to a consortium of construction companies that estimates the cost at $248 million.

It’s a design-build contract, which is expected to rein in cost overruns.

“You don’t have the conflict you have in a traditional contract where people point fingers at each other and say, 'Well, it’s not my fault. It’s the designer’s fault. And the designer says, 'it’s not my fault. It’s the contractor’s fault.' Here, they’re one team," Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti told NBC 10 News.

Alviti said the project will eliminate much of the congestion on the highway, making it safer for the 90,000 vehicles that traverse it daily and eliminating the millions of dollars the state spends on minor fixes.

Currently, he said, traffic gets backed up because of traffic merges where off ramps and on ramps conflict. The new roadway will be designed to keep those traffic lanes separated.

“All of that congestion that happens because of those conflicts, that weaving pattern that exists, will be eliminated,” he told NBC 10.

Two different groups of companies bid on the project, and Alviti is pleased with the selection of the 6/10 Constructors. He said they “had both the lowest price, by $82 million, and the best technical score. So, we got the best of both worlds out of this competition.”

The group includes Barletta, O&G Industries, DW White Construction, and Aetna Bridge Company.

Many of the bridges will be replaced by the "build-in-place" method so that traffic will only have to be stopped for a weekend to wheel the replacement bridges into position.

Alviti said construction should begin in a year and is scheduled to be finished in 2023.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)