Barletta and Aetna Bridge, two of the 13 companies demanded by the Rhode Island Department of Transport in 2024, filed a claim against the claim that alleged that the state of the ocean ignored the recommendations of a detailed inspection report that detailed structural deficiencies before requesting offers for a rehabilitation of the Providence Bridge.
The joint company members Barletta and Aetna Bridge, together with VHB, disembarked the contract to rehabilitate the bridge in 2021. The demand claims that the defendants knew or should have known the engineering and the past inspection history of the 56-year-old bridge I-195 and took into account “ as part of their collective obligations in the state ”.
According to Ridot, the bridge that connects East Providence and Providence has about 133,000 vehicles that cross in both directions.
“The Rhode Island Department of Transport may have avoided costly and disastrous emergency closure of the Washington Bridge in December 2023 if he had followed recommendations in a detailed report of inspection of 1992, which stated structural deficiencies and requested advanced radiographic evidence before any rehabilitation of the bridge was performed,” says Sallie Hofmeister, a barleta, a barlet. Spakeswoman.
Tim Rondeau, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office, says: “Claims are expected in a case like this, and the state is maintained by complaints. As this is part of the continuous litigation, we have no comment.”
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha [bridge] The closure, our economy has supported immense costs and our state has and will continue to spend important resources as a result. “
The claim adds that Barletta and Aetna Bridge “claim that the state violated its contract and did not act in good faith by hiding the true condition of the bridge and stopping performing the appropriate tests before applying for offers for a rehabilitation that should never have been made,” says Hofmeister. “They claim that the state did not disseminate the report of engineers Lichtenstein & Associates when the state requested offers in March 2021 for the rehabilitation of the bridge.”
Although the state knew the structural deficiencies of the bridge and the need for a penetrating radar test before any rehabilitation plan, he never revealed these defects in the design guidelines that bidders had to use as a basis for their proposals, according to Hofmeister. “These guidelines required the bidders not to remedy the bridge’s wear and tear rods or to strengthen their committed post-tensor system,” he says.
Instead, he added, “the state meant that the bridge could be rehabilitated and approved the joint company’s proposal. It was not until after the emergency stop that the advanced test was finally recommended in 1992, and found that the structural deficiencies were so widespread that the Washington Bridge was out of repair and should be demolished and replaced.”
In an unrelated demand, Barletta paid $ 11 million last month to resolve a civilian case that involved an illegal spill of polluted filling during the construction of a providence, Ri Highway Connector Project.
