FREEPORT (WGME) — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in Maine Tuesday to tour multiple road and bridge projects while highlighting federal investments in the state.
Maine is the last of the 50 states that Buttigieg has visited as secretary.
Buttigieg began his trip with stops in Freeport, where he toured construction sites for an ongoing project that will replace two bridges that carry traffic over I-295.
Built in the late 1950s, the existing bridges were deteriorating and in desperate need of replacement. More than half of the project is being paid for through funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“I’ve seen it for myself, the unique needs of Maine,” Buttigieg said. “We were just talking with the commissioner about the issue, for example, of having this northern latitude combined with the kind of freeze-thaw cycles that are only picking up now. So, where as the pacific northwest, they’ve got their challenges, but not as much as the snow and ice that you have here. They’ve really had to innovate in terms of the bridge design.”
The secretary also touched on Maine’s backlog of critical infrastructure projects. For years, the state has been trying to play catch-up when it comes to repairing or replacing poorly rated bridges and roads.
CBS13 Reporter Dan Lampariello: “What can be done to better streamline the process so states like ours, which don’t have large populations but have a huge tourist industry for example, can have better access to federal dollars?”
Buttigieg: “Well, for one thing, you have to have enough volume of federal dollars that you’re not just doing piecemeal work. So one of the things we’ve talked about is the ability of being about to do these two bridges at once. That actually means a savings in terms of a better deal for the state DOT, purchasing the supplies and the materials that go into it.”
The secretary also mentioned that states need to be providing more funding of their own as well.
“The more the state steps up, the more you can make use of those federal dollars and the better partner we can be,” Buttigieg said.
One of the other challenges Maine and other New England states are facing is the impact of a changing climate.
Last winter, the state saw dozens of roads and even some bridges washed out or damaged by strong rain and storm events.
Buttigieg says federal agencies are working with congress help states get more emergency funding to make that infrastructure more resilient.
“We know that the climate is changing, in a way that’s going to create more of those needs and that’s already upon us no matter how good we get at preventing it from getting worse,” Buttigieg said. “We can’t go on just saying we’re going to require a community to put a road back the same way it used to be if a 100-year flood becomes an annual event and it’s washing out all the time.”
On Wednesday, the Department of Transportation says Buttigieg will continue his tour of Maine with a tour of the Portland International Marine Terminal (IMT). The facility was was awarded a $14.2 million grant through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help modernize operations and improve the efficiency of goods moving through the terminal. For the tour, the secretary will be joined by Governor Janet Mills and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree.
Buttigieg will close out this leg of his summer of construction tour in East Deering in Portland with a news conference that will highlight the progress of Biden-Harris Administration investments across Maine, including a $25 million RAISE grant to transform East Deering’s industrial waterfront into an innovation hub.
The Department of Transportation says the grant will improve multimodal transportation options and safety in the neighborhood while also restoring residents’ access to a section of Maine’s coastline that has been inaccessible for more than a century due to the old B&M Beans factory and the construction of I-295, which bisected the neighborhood.