A massive, $196 million rehabilitation of Rhode Island Highway 146 is well under way, and in the coming months motorists in the northern part of the state will see a major change as construction moves to the building of a new flyover bridge across Sayles Hill Road in North Smithfield.
Charles St. Martin, a spokesperson of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT), told NRI Now that construction of the new bridge will begin this fall. It is designed to eliminate highway travel through what is currently a dangerous intersection.
In August, RIDOT filed three-year temporary easements on 41 North Smithfield properties to accommodate the upcoming work. St. Martin said that none of the property owners, including businesses in the area, will permanently lose their lands.
The road project, which began last year, includes paving 8 mi. of roadway and replacement of multiple bridges. Construction on the existing bridges that carry Interstate 295 over R.I. 146 started last spring, and travelers have seen several different lane closures throughout the work.
While lanes may shift as construction moves to Sayles Hill Road, RIDOT's St. Martin said the state agency will maintain the same number of through lanes on R.I. 146 as exist currently.
Project to Improve Road's Safety, Congestion
State transportation department officials in Providence have considered R.I. 146 to be a critical highway route that has gone unimproved for far too long.
More than 171,000 vehicles travel the expressway between Providence and connecting roads to Worcester, Mass., each day.
The new flyover bridge will not only relieve congestion on the roadway but will mark a major safety improvement for northern Rhode Island commuters, noted NRI Now, a local online news service.
Currently the R.I. 146/Sayles Hill Road intersection averages more than 85 crashes per year and holds the only traffic signal on the state's portion of the travel corridor, which stretches 16 mi. from Providence north to the Massachusetts border. That signal will be removed as the proposed bridge will allow drivers to pass over Sayles Hill Road.
An impact study conducted by RIDOT noted that, currently, the travel time on R.I. 146 from I-295 to Sayles Hill Road takes around 10 minutes. Without improvements, though, the same distance would take 29 minutes to drive by the year 2055.
Once the new work is complete, RIDOT said the same stretch of highway is expected to take only five minutes to travel in 2055.
"The reconstruction of R.I. 146 will transform the entire corridor, improving rideability, functionality and reliability," the transportation department noted on its website. "Connecting various towns, the project will help facilitate freight, commerce and recreation for a large and diverse region."
According to RIDOT, other highlights of the project include:
- Replacing one bridge along the corridor and performing preservation or rehabilitation work on four others.
- Building frontage roads for easy and safe access to businesses at the Sayles Hill Road interchange.
- Repaving R.I. 146 from the I-295 interchange to the Massachusetts state line.
- Adding bus-on-shoulder accommodations along the southern end of the highway in North Providence and Providence.
- Extending existing fiber optic lines and Intelligent Transportation Systems and traffic monitoring from the I-295 interchange to the Massachusetts state line.
- Rebuilding the R.I. 146/R.I. 146A junction by removing dangerous U-turns and replacing them with a diverging diamond interchange.
- Extending the weave length for the R.I. 99 ramp to R.I. 146 South.
- Improving the geometry of the I-295 southbound off-ramp to R.I. 146.
- Building new drainage systems along the route.
- Replacing guardrails and making other safety improvements such as wrong way driving detection systems
The rehabilitation of the entire corridor is expected to be complete by 2026.
Due to the efforts of Rhode Island's Congressional delegation, RIDOT secured a $65 million federal INFRA Grant to help fund the project.
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