The increasingly pressing need to address the Commonwealth's structurally deficient bridges was the primary driver behind the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project, but there were other important factors that led PennDOT to pursue a bundled P3 approach. One of these was the Missouri Safe and Sound Bridge Improvement Program, which was the first major bundled bridge replacement program in the U.S. It was advanced in the mid-2000s and also involved smaller rural bridges around the state. The Safe and Sound program was initially conceived as a design-build-finance-maintain P3 endeavor, where a single private entity would be responsible for all of these functions. However, due to high financing costs during the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, the program was ultimately advanced as a single design-build and multiple design-bid-build procurements. The project replaced 554 bridges under a $487 million design-build contract in three and a half years. Another 248 bridges were rehabilitated using design-bid-build contracts.
Officials with PennDOT held discussions with Missouri DOT to learn more about the project and explore whether a similar approach could be used in Pennsylvania. In the early 2010s, two important pieces of legislation passed in Pennsylvania that were integral to the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project. The first of these was Act 88 of 2012, which provided authorization to undertake projects involving new or existing transportation facilities as P3s. It allowed P3 agreements to extend for as long as 99 years and required that all P3 projects be approved by a newly created State P3 Board before PennDOT could initiate a procurement.
In 2013, the state legislature passed Act 89, which provided important new transportation funding by eliminating Pennsylvania's motor fuels tax at the pump and replacing it with increases on the fuel tax at the wholesale level. Together with increases in vehicle registration and license fees, Act 89 would raise $2.3 billion annually by 2017.
Once these two pieces of legislation were in place, PennDOT moved quickly to advance the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project. Over 70 percent of the revenue from Act 89 was dedicated to highways and bridges, and PennDOT opted to use a portion of those funds to fund availability payments to a private contractor who would rebuild and maintain a set of bridges. The Department pursued the availability payment structure because charging tolls on the replacement bridges would have been infeasible. Under this approach, the Department would make annual payments to a private developer over a 25-year concession period. The developer would assume the risks and responsibilities related to delivery of the project on time and within budget, and related to maintaining the bridges according to the standards set forth in the contract. If the private partner does not perform according to the contract standards, then PennDOT's availability payments to the private partner would be reduced accordingly.
In order to identify the structures that would be included in the project, PennDOT screened over 2,000 structurally deficient bridges around the state, ultimately selecting 558 bridges to be included in the project. Based on the projected revenues from Act 89, the Department had an idea of the amount of funding it could dedicate to the project and selected the number of bridges accordingly. The bridges are generally smaller crossings. Most have two lanes and one or two spans, and range from 40 to 75 feet in length. The bridges are similar in design and are largely in rural areas, with limited impacts on utilities or railroads and few significant environmental issues. This approach would enable PennDOT's private partner to use a small number of standard designs for the replacement bridges with limited concern for complications from environmental approvals.