East Providence slogs through traffic, faces prospect of no quick fix for Washington Bridge

This article originally appeared in the Boston Globe on January 23, 2024 and was written by Brittany Bowker and Brian Amaral.  

Below is John Marion’s comment on the traffic that swallowed East Providence in wake of the Washington Bridge closure.

John Marion lives in Tiverton, where traffic has been fine. He commutes regularly to Providence, where he works as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island.

“It’s once you get into East Providence that it becomes a challenge,” Marion said on Tuesday. “Those main detour routes consistently have traffic.”

Marion said he was surprised that state officials had walked back the three-month timeline originally given to fix the bridge.

“It was surprising to hear that after roughly six weeks, they aren’t able to tell us yet whether or not this is going to be a repair or replacement, and they aren’t able to put a timeline on when that decision is going to be made,” Marion said. “They seemed fairly confident in those first days of a three-month timeline for repair. So to come back almost halfway to that three months and to hear that they don’t even know what the extent of the problem is yet — it was surprising.”

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