Investment in the Palm Avenue/Interstate 805 Interchange Bridge will improve safety, travel along key corridor in San Diego and is part of nearly $300 million in Fiscal Year 2022 Bridge Investment Program Grants making critical improvements to 9 bridge projects

FHWA 13-23A
Contact: FHWA.PressOffice@dot.gov
Tel: (202) 366-0660
 
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) today announced the City of San Diego’s project to rehabilitate the Palm Avenue/Interstate 805 Interchange Bridge in San Diego will receive $24 million as part of  a $300 million investment from the Bridge Investment Program in nine small and medium-sized bridge projects in both rural and urban areas in eight states and the District of Columbia.

The grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Bridge Investment Program are an integral part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to rebuild our infrastructure and grow our economy from the middle out and bottom up. It comes on top of billions of dollars in other bridge and highway funding already flowing to every U.S. state and territory that is helping communities rebuild, repair, and replace tens of thousands of bridges across the nation and restoring connections that are vital to commuters, emergency responders, truck drivers, public transit riders, and more.

“When bridges have to close for repairs—or worse, begin to fail—it can cut off access to an entire community, adding hours to commutes, costing money for local businesses, and delaying first responders from getting to an emergency,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The grant awards we’re announcing today are helping communities of all sizes modernize their bridges so that school buses, delivery trucks, ambulances, and commuters can get where they need to go quickly and safely.”

The grant to the City of San Diego will fund bridge rehabilitation and preservation of the 50-year-old Palm Avenue overcrossing bridge in San Diego. This bridge is a key connector for the Otay Mesa-Nestor community and is located only a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The rehab and preservation work aims to improve the structural safety of the bridge and enhance safety and traffic operations. The upgrades will help alleviate traffic congestion and increase the seismic resiliency of the existing bridge.

In addition to addressing safety and traffic operations for communities in southern California, improvements to this bridge, which carries more than 38,000 vehicles per day, including more than 750 trucks, will address delays that currently raise costs for American families. A comprehensive upgrade to the bridge structure will modernize the bridge , extend the service life, increase resiliency to earthquakes, and reduce long-term maintenance costs for the City of San Diego. Improvements also will reduce travel time and delays, make it safer for users to walk and bike, and increase freight movement through these corridors originating from the port of entry.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is investing in this bridge rehabilitation project because it will facilitate commerce and improve mobility in the San Diego area, including for pedestrians and cyclists,” said Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt. “Over the next five years, the Bridge Investment Program will work to repair, replace, and rehabilitate structures that allow businesses to move their goods to market while helping people get to jobs, schools, doctors, and other vital destinations. This project is an investment in both the United States’ economic growth and in the safety and long-term resilience of the communities that make this country great.”

The $300 million in investments announced today are awarded to bridge projects with eligible costs of up to $100 million. Today’s announcement follows earlier announcements under the Bridge Investment Program umbrella:

• In October 2022, FHWA announced $20 million in bridge-planning grants for 24 projects in 24 states. Those grants were designed to create a pipeline of construction-ready bridge projects that are now in the early stages of project development.
• In January 2023, FHWA announced $2.1 billion in large-bridge project grants to make critical improvements to four nationally significant bridges that serve as a vital link for local residents, communities, and both the regional and national economy. In addition to the four FY22 Large Bridge Project Grants, FHWA also announced an additional Bridge Planning grant to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the amount of $1.6 million to advance critical planning work in support of replacement of the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges over the Cape Cod Canal.

The Bridge Investment Program is a competitive grant program that will invest $12.5 billion over 5 years to rebuild, repair, and replace small, medium, and large bridges. This program already invested $2.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2022, and complements the $27.5-billion Bridge Formula Program, representing the single-largest dedicated investment in bridges since the construction of the Interstate Highway System.

President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is growing the American economy from the bottom up and middle-out, not top-down – from rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, to creating a manufacturing and innovation boom powered by good-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, to building a clean-energy economy that will combat climate change and make our communities safer and more resilient.

For more information on the Bridge Investment Program, please visit the FHWA’s Bridge Investment Program webpage.

# # #