Feds award $500 million grant for major new Harrisburg bridge that had been set for tolling

Two years ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was pursuing tolls to raise money to replace the South Bridge on Interstate 83 in Dauphin County because it couldn’t afford the project.

A lawsuit filed by communities who opposed tolling stopped the upgrade to the bridge, which is in one of the country’s major freight corridors.

On Wednesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced at a news conference in Harrisburg, with the bridge behind him, a $500 million grant to put the project back on track. The I-83 grant is one of 13 across the country the department announced Wednesday worth more than $5 billion under the Biden administration’s Large Bridge Program.

In a media briefing Tuesday, Buttigieg said the highly competitive program drew 33 applications for projects worth more than $10 billion. Projects that weren’t chosen can apply again next year.

Buttigieg said the program is designed for projects that are so large that states can’t fund them without federal help. The approved projects fit that criteria, but they also play such key roles in moving freight as part of the nation’s supply chain that weight restrictions or closures would have a national impact on the movement of goods, he said.

At the news conference, Buttigieg said this project was ideal for the program.

“Nowhere is that need greater than that I-83 bridge,” he said as he pointed at the structure.

The corridor provides a direct link to the harbor in Baltimore, one of the busiest for freight in the country. It also is a key connection for goods moving out of New Jersey, New York and other states along the East Coast.

“I got a lot of calls from Gov. [Josh] Shapiro and other elected officials in that area about how important that project is,” Buttigieg said. “These projects are so large that it is such a challenge to do them any other way [than with major federal assistance].”

At Wednesday’s news conference, Shapiro said the federal grant is the largest Pennsylvania has ever received for a single project. “This is a big deal,” the governor said, because the highway is “a vital artery.”

Mike Carroll, state transportation secretary, said construction should begin in 2026 and take two to three years at a total cost of $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion. The new bridge will be built just south of the existing structure so traffic can be maintained during the work, and the highway will be shifted slightly to meet up with the new bridge.

Buttigieg said one side benefit from providing federal funding for major projects is that it frees states to spend their own money on other important but less expensive projects that wouldn’t move forward otherwise.

Under the previous administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, PennDOT developed plans to charge tolls on nine major bridges and turn them over to a private contractor for replacement or major rehabilitation before the courts blocked the plan. Those bridges included the South Bridge on I-83 and a bridge on Interstate 79 in Bridgeville.