PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — The R.I. Department of Transportation has removed more than 700 bridges from its quarterly progress reports to state lawmakers, allowing the agency to claim it met its long-promised goal of getting 90% of the state’s bridges into good condition, a Target 12 investigation has found.
Gov. Gina Raimondo set the goal in 2015 as she sought passage of the RhodeWorks law, a multibillion-dollar effort to fix the state’s worst-in-the-nation bridges, funded in part from a new toll on trucks. The target: get 90% of Rhode Island’s bridges into good condition within 10 years.
RIDOT Director Peter Alviti — who was appointed by Raimondo to implement RhodeWorks and retained by her successor, Dan McKee — took a victory lap in his resignation letter on Wednesday, writing, “I am now pleased to report that we have accomplished that mission.”…