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Posted on 11/18/2025 7:52:22 AM PST by Red Badger
The rebuilding cost of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge has more than doubled, and has a new expected opening of late 2030.
The Key Bridge, which collapsed in March 2024 after being hit by a cargo ship, is now projected to cost $4.3 billion to $5.2 billion to rebuild, up from the previous cost estimate of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion, CNN reported. The bridge was also originally expected to be completed by 2028.
“Preliminary cost and project time estimates were made less than two weeks after the initial crash and before any engineering or design studies were conducted,” Maryland Democrat Gov. Wes Moore said Monday.
“Since then, national economic conditions have deteriorated and material costs have increased. At the same time, elevated costs have resulted from federal design and resilience standards – not discretionary state choices.”
As many as 35,000 vehicles a day traveled across the bridge before the ship ran into one of its pillars, resulting in the death of six people.
Maryland's acting Transportation Secretary and Maryland Transportation Authority Chairwoman Samantha J. Biddle gave a similar explanation about the higher costs and projected completion date.
“The updated cost range and schedule are directly correlated to increased material costs and to a robust pier protection system designed to protect the new Key Bridge and reduce the likelihood of a future ship strike to the bridge’s foundational piers.”
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Replacement of Minneapolis bridge that collapsed into Mississippi river.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Saint_Anthony_Falls_Bridge
The $234 million bridge was completed three months ahead of schedule and on budget.
Check out the Vasco de Gama bridge, longest in Europe, which was completed fairly recently for about 700 million euros.
-PJ
Minneapolis Hwy I-35 bridge collapse was an 8 lane bridge
Minneapolis has had a fairly consistently Democratic electorate led by politicians who were nonetheless persistently in fear of being thrown out of office, so therefore has had until recently a fairly functional state. For example, they got rid of zoning laws which allow the state to tell you how you are allowed to use your own land.
You get the ship which you can sell to the highest inside bidder for $25.00.
Well played, DG! Cheers!
They need more estimates and bids that’s ridiculous. Ridiculous.
If they want one dime of federal money then they should have to let Trump build it. Then it will done very quickly, Cheaply, and it will be done well.
Construction all my life and this is different than a cost over-run ballooning project like the Big Dig where contracts had massive extras and change orders and additional phases had to be added. This is an instance where a State Department of Transportation did a preliminary estimate (not a contract or bid from a final design) and now that the designers are getting the design finished and getting it ready to go out to bid they are warning that the spit—in-the-hand estimate of a year back was way off base.
INSURANCE COMPANIES CAN HANDLE THIS?????
Well I guess that low bidder thing doesn’t work in Maryland. Who knew? Do you think maybe the contracts were promised to firms that aren’t really bridge builders for maybe political purposes? Naw, they wouldn’t do that, would they?
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