Karn DhingraThe Rhode Island Department of Transportation was awarded an $81 million federal grant in January to build a series of freeway interchanges and ramps connecting Interstate 95 to a business park that houses the Port of Davisville.
The project’s estimated total cost is $135 million and will improve safety and freight connectivity in the region, Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said in a statement. Construction begins in 2025 after design and build teams are selected.
Rhode Island’s federal grant will help finance the completion of the final link between the state’s portion of Interstate 95 and Route 4, establishing a direct freeway connection at one of its busiest junctions for commercial and passenger traffic.
The funding will also create three missing ramps to improve access for truck and freight providers servicing the 3,200-acre Quonset Business Park, a major industrial park that is home to 225 companies, employing 14,000 people.
The Port of Davisville is Rhode Island’s only publicly owned port and one of the nation’s largest points of import of new automobiles. The port generates $5.9 billion in economic output, roughly 8.3% of the Ocean State’s gross domestic product and $1.7 billion in household income for local families, according to a 2023 report on the park’s economic impact. Quonset also creates $169 million in state and local tax revenue annually.
Quonset will host 17,000 jobs and generate $7.2 billion in economic output, including $2.1 billion in household income for Rhode Island families by 2030, according to the report.
The project is one of several that recently received money from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects program (INFRA) program.
Rhode Island’s project was one of 37 infrastructure projects across the country that was approved and awarded federal funding from a pot of $4.9 billion through the National Infrastructure Project Assistance (MEGA) grant program and INFRA grant program. According to the USDOT, 190 projects across the country requested a total of $24.8 billion from the INFRA program.
“This is the second largest INFRA grant Rhode Island has received, and the largest to date for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation,” said Reed, who also secured a $4 million federal planning grant for the project.
The project will help keep heavy freight traffic off local roads, reducing congestion, noise and pollution in residential neighborhoods, while creating more accessibility and growth opportunities for the industrial zone around Quonset, Reed said.
Public-private partnerships will finance and implement the project, which is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 500 metric tons annually.
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