Emergency contract speeds bridge replacement

The collapse of the I-5 Skagit River Bridge shows how fast government can work in an emergency. A replacement bridge was finished in less than a month. You might wonder why every transportation project can’t get done like that.

Within hours of the collapse May 23, the state was working on a plan.

“We’ve already got our bridge designers and engineers starting to work on what are the options for replacing this,” said Washington State Department of Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson the next day.

Peterson called on trusted, pre-qualified contractors to do the initial work. Governor Jay Inslee vowed to re-open I-5 by mid-June.

And they did it. By awarding an emergency contract. Bart Treece, with the Washington State Department of Transportation says in an emergency, competitive bidding is suspended.

“We have laws, competitive bidding laws in this state, to make sure that it’s fair for folks to bid on and, of course, there’s the permitting process. But with the emergency contract we can streamline the permitting process and get a lot of agencies on board early on,” said Treece.

The Governor estimated a cost of $15 million for a temporary and then a replacement bridge. Typically, emergency contracts are expensive, due to fewer bidders, short notice and more costly supplies.

“We’re really happy that it came in under that $15 million number and that’s for both the temporary and the permanent structures,” Treece said. He pointed out that the state is not reluctant to issue emergency contracts. “It’s not that rare. A bridge collapse, that’s something that a lot of people hear about and that’s a major deal but you’ve got rock slides, you’ve got concrete panels cracking and you’ve got a lot of really delicate infrastructure that’s really old.”

It took 26 days to install a temporary Skagit River Bridge. But even with emergency contracting, the permanent bridge won’t open until sometime in October.