U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is asking elected officials and local leaders on Cape Cod to help her explain to her colleagues in Washington just how important the bridges to the Cape are and how badly they need to be replaced.
In a letter to local stakeholders, the state’s senior senator says she needs them to weigh in on what the bridges mean to the hundreds of thousands of Cape residents and the millions who travel there each year.
“I seek your input as I press the federal government to live up to its commitments to replace the assets they own,” Warren wrote.
Replacing the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges, which provide the only roadway connection on and off Cape Cod for the 263,000 people who live there and 5 million annual visitors, could cost upwards of $4 billion. MassDOT and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working together on plans to replace the federally-owned structures since 2020, when USACE determined they would require replacement.
In 2022, the Biden Administration awarded the state a $1.6 million project planning grant through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the president’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal calls for sending $350 million of a $600 million commitment to the Commonwealth. That still leaves billions left to fund on a project that hasn’t started.
“I am working hard to ensure I secure the rest of the funding necessary to replace these bridges,” Warren wrote.
The senator asks the region’s state senators, representatives, town managers and others — people who can speak from personal experience on the matter — to tell her staff how the “functionally obsolete” spans have already impacted their lives, what benefits they see in new bridges, what the future impacts of not replacing the 90-year-old structures might be, and how new bridges will help the local job market and economy.
Warren asks for answers by Aug 2, “in order to better understand the impacts of the current state of the bridges – and the benefits of replacing them – for your communities.”
The Bourne Bridge is rated as “structurally deficient” and the Sagamore is in “fair” condition, according to the most recent assessment of either span. Not replacing the bridges, according to estimates by the Army Corp, would cost $775 million in maintenance by 2050.