Plans to replace the Bourne and Sagamore bridges are moving forward despite a possible Trump administration freeze of $350 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The money wasn’t expected to hit state coffers until late 2027 or early 2028, according to Luisa Paiewonsky, head of the project for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. She said the delay in funding could be resolved once the government shutdown ends.
“That would be our hope,” she said. “It does appear to be related to the shutdown discussions in D.C.”
Russell Vought, director of the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget, announced an Army Corps funding “pause” Friday on the social media platform X.
He tied it to the shutdown but warned that some funding could be canceled altogether.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers' ability to manage billions of dollars in projects,” he wrote in the post. “The Corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects & considering them for cancellation, including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore.”
Paiewonsky, executive director of the Megaprojects Delivery Office at the state Department of Transportation, said the state learned from contacts in Washington that the Trump administration's intent was to include the Cape Cod bridges in the pause. As of Monday afternoon, she had not received official notice of any change to the bridge funding.
The $350 million for the bridges from the Army Corps is designated to fund construction, which is still years away. First, plans for the bridges have to get through environmental permitting, which is just beginning.
Meanwhile, a much larger set of federal grants for the Bourne and Sagamore bridges, totaling $1.3 billion, should not be affected by the freeze, because it does not come from the Army Corps.
From the latter set of grants, the state has already received $36 million for pre-construction activities.
Work on the Cape bridges is moving full steam ahead, Paiewonsky said.
“We don't want to get distracted by tweets or anything else,” she said. “We really want to move this project forward. There's so much good to be had from getting the project into construction.”
On Friday night, following Vought’s post, Gov. Maura Healey issued a joint statement with the Cape congressional delegation — Sen. Ed Markey, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Bill Keating.
They said the federally owned Cape Cod bridges carry millions of travelers a year and are “essential for the safety of Cape Codders and visitors from across the country and the world.”
“This project is moving forward with funding appropriated by a bipartisan Congress and lawfully awarded by the federal government,” they said.
In a separate statement, State Sen. Dylan Fernandes said the Trump administration’s action threatens to close the Cape bridges.
“We are going to fight back to ensure Cape and islanders have safe and reliable transportation access,” he said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the bridges, indicated in a 2020 report that the bridges would need major rehabilitation if they were not replaced. The Corps said the work would require the Sagamore Bridge to be fully closed for 130 days and the Bourne Bridge for 180 days. In addition, it said lane closures would be necessary for 380 days on the Sagamore and 480 on the Bourne.
