Biden Administration Allocates Hundreds of Millions to Replace 88 Year-Old Sagamore Bridge
What would happen if we never found the money to replace the Sagamore and/or the Bourne Bridge? Both bridges are in pretty awful shape after years and years of heavy traffic. Tearing down the old bridges to build new ones has been estimated at costing around $4 billion – and nobody has been able to figure out who fronts the cash.
On Thursday the Biden Administration announced that it is allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to replace one of two aging Cape Cod bridges, the good ol’ Sagamore.
2 thoughts here: Back to my first question, if we couldn’t find funding (and massive $4 million funding at that) to replace the aging bridges what would we do? Paddle personal dingies to the Cape for weekend fun? And would Cape Cod become it’s own territory? Or would an insane ferry service be launched? Good luck with wait times on that in the summer. Would Cape Codders have to rely on Cape Air to pond jump to the mainland whenever they want? Would whales become a new clean form of transportation? Yes, these questions are posed semi-tongue-in-cheek but what would actually happen?
And thought #2: Replacing the 2 aging bridges to Cape Cod has been estimated to cost $4 billion. The Biden Administration allocated $372 million to replace the Sagamore Bridge. Keeping things as simple as possible, half of $4 billion is $2 billion so while $372 million is great and a big chunk o’ change, where is the rest of that money coming from? Wasn’t that the problem in the first place? Everyone likes eating at James Beard restaurants…. until the check comes.
EDIT: I just got my answer! (To question 2.) Massachusetts has an application in for another $1.06 billion to help replace the Sagamore Bridge from the Bridge Investment Program’s Large Bridge Project Program. Massachusetts is still waiting for a decision. New question: what if the decision is “no?” Do we just rebuild the Sagamore as a tiny bridge and squeeze into Matchbox cars to drive to the Cape? Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek too.
Both bridges are currently operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, who back in 2020 said that both bridges should be replaced by bridges built to modern day standards. Once this is complete, ownership of the two bridges would be transferred to MassDOT.
Oh and I just came up with a solution to my “what if” question which opened this article. Follow me: human slingshot. Launch me to P’town for some raspeberry lime rickies baby!