Shovels In The Ground At The Connecticut River Bridge

By Jim Mathews / President & CEO

Chalk up another win for America's rail passengers from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: construction is now set to begin on a project to replace the 117-year-old railroad bridge over the Connecticut River between Old Lyme and Old Saybrook, which kicked off yesterday with a groundbreaking ceremony packed full of dignitaries and organized labor.

With the plucky old survivor of a bridge in the background, I watched as the VIPs stuck silver shovels in the ground to mark the start of this long-awaited project – a $1.3 billion program to build a new moveable bridge just south of the existing span, and then to remove the old bridge once the new spans are in place and operating.

Every day 56 passenger and freight trains lumber slowly across this bridge. It is an exceptionally busy piece of infrastructure, and the rolling-lift bascule span opened and closed for traffic repeatedly just during the hour or so that the ceremony took place. The bridge’s age and condition – in 2007 engineers determined that the bridge was past its useful life and needed to be replaced – have meant slow orders, delays, and ad hoc repairs.

But thanks to the BIL's historic levels of capital funding, passengers on Amtrak and commuter rail on the busy Northeast Corridor can look forward to traveling faster, more safely, and more reliably over the Connecticut River than we do today. Top speeds will be 55 percent higher than they are currently, and the new bridge will sit about six to eight feet higher than the existing structure.

[Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, Deputy U.S. Secretary of Transportation Polly Trottenberg, and Rail Passengers President & CEO Jim Mathews at the Sept. 5, 2024, groundbreaking for the Connecticut River Bridge replacement project]

This project is fully funded right now; the Federal Railroad Administration awarded Amtrak “up to” $826.64 million from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail grant program to complete the bridge replacement, funding that will be spent alongside funds contributed by Amtrak and the State of Connecticut.

Replacing this 117-year-old bridge is just another example of how the BIL is helping to reverse decades of underinvestment in vital infrastructure, and our Association applauds Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the Connecticut Dept. of Transportation for getting this vital project moving.