Vendor feedback to shape new Washington Bridge bid specs not being made public

Eleven vendors were willing to provide feedback when state transportation officials went looking for guidance in preparing a new request for proposals (RFP) to rebuild the westbound Washington Bridge.

The public knows the names of the 10 companies and one trade group because they have been listed on the Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s (RIDOT)’s online procurement portal on Aug. 2, the deadline to respond to a request for information (RFI).

But the information they gave is being kept under wraps. RIDOT has declined to publish what the firms submitted. 

Not even Gov. Dan McKee has been briefed on what was said.

“The Governor will be briefed when the RIDOT team has completed its RFP revision process,” McKee spokesperson Olivia DaRocha said Wednesday.

That could be weeks from now.

“The timing of a revised RFP depends on the complexity of the comments and subsequent changes,” RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin said Monday.

Rhode Island Current reached out to all 11 vendors about what feedback they provided. Most did not respond to immediate requests for comment, while two declined and one referred all questions about the Washington Bridge to RIDOT.

The western side of the Washington Bridge was abruptly closed last December after engineers discovered broken anchor rods that put it at risk of collapse. At the time, the state said the span carried approximately 96,000 vehicles a day.

RIDOT posted the RFI on its portal on July 22 giving vendors until Aug. 2 to provide feedback on the state’s first RFP for bids to rebuild the Washington Bridge. The initial RFP —  posted April 30 with a July 3 deadline to respond — drew no bidders. State officials said they believed the original timeline of August 2026 to complete the project was too aggressive even though it offered $10 million in incentives based on per-day rates ranging between $5,000 to $7,000 to get the job done as quickly as possible. Potential contractors faced daily penalties of $30,000 for exceeding the completion date.

Common Cause Rhode Island Executive Director John Marion expressed disappointment over RIDOT’s decision to withhold the RFI responses. 

“If there ever was a contract where public interest was paramount, this is it,” Marion said. “From the beginning, the Washington Bridge fiasco has shown a lot of problems with transparency in Rhode Island government and it continues to be a problem.”

Ken Block, a two-time gubernatorial candidate and founder of Watchdog RI who has been a vocal critic of McKee’s administration, called the state lack of transparency “bogus.”

“Materials submitted by vendors answering the question of why you didn’t bid should fall squarely into the realm of public information,” he said in an interview. “An RFI is not part of the RFP process — they are disconnected from each other.”

Responses available upon a new contract

In the state’s refusal to publicize the comments from the 11 vendors, Department of Administration spokesperson Cassius Shuman said information would only be disclosed via an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) “at the time of a final contract award of a subsequent, related procurement.” 

In layperson’s terms: Responses won’t be released until the state picks a vendor to rebuild the bridge. 

McKee’s office declined to state if the governor plans to set a firm deadline for the new bid process.

“Clearly, he would like it issued as soon as possible, but he also understands that the team of experts creating the RFP needs time to analyze the suggestions made through the RFI process and incorporate the appropriate ones into a revised RFP,” DaRocha said.

Shuman on Friday said the reason responses won’t be public yet is because “RIDOT may incorporate feedback and requirements into a future solicitation for the Washington Bridge.”

“Therefore, the records submitted by vendors in response to the RFI are considered work product, notes and impressions, and are part of a larger deliberative process to develop a new solicitation,” he said .”Releasing this information prematurely may also place vendors responding to the RFI at a competitive disadvantage during a subsequent procurement.”

The informational request also states “all information received in response to the RFI and marked as ‘Proprietary’ will be handled accordingly.” But what is seen as proprietary could always be redacted, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Lou DiPalma, a Middletown Democrat.

“If the whole thing is proprietary, that’s another story,” DiPalma said in an interview. “But it’s hard to believe the whole thing is proprietary.”

Waiting for a lawsuit 

The state’s record of transparency has been mixed.

The state was quick to publicize details of requests for proposals and information — along with creating an online dashboard showing real-time travel estimates along impacted routes. But officials also delayed the release of a forensic analysis detailing what led to the bridge to be in such poor condition — which McKee initially promised to release in March.

Max Wistow, part of the legal team hired by the state to pursue litigation against those determined to be at fault for the bridge’s emergency closure, told reporters last month the forensic analysis could be made public as the legal process unfolds. But the state has yet to file a lawsuit. Wistow and co-lead attorney Jonathan Savage said in a joint statement Friday  they intend to file no later than Aug. 19.

And McKee’s office earlier in the year charged WPRI and the Providence Journal hundreds of dollars in fees to obtain records related to the Washington Bridge closure — though those outlets were subsequently refunded by the governor.

How much is that public records request? McKee orders RIDOT to refund news outlets

“From the beginning, the Washington Bridge fiasco has shown a lot of problems with transparency in Rhode Island government, and it continues to be a problem,” Marion said. “I cannot think of another time where information was so hard to come by that the legislature had to pass a special law.”

Marion was referring to the law introduced by East Bay legislators during this legislative session mandating RIDOT publish monthly reports on the status of what’s being done to replace the bridge connecting East Providence and Providence via Interstate 195.

The state has so far published three 22-page reports detailing whether RIDOT has achieved its project timelines, along with a list of traffic accidents on the open section of the bridge and average travel times. In addition to its online publication, the report is due on the first of each month to the House speaker, Senate president, chairpersons of the House and Senate Finance Committees, and the governor’s office.

DiPalma said the monthly snapshots have a lot of necessary information, but are still far from sufficient.

“What’s sufficient in the end is getting the bridge rebuilt,” he said.

Secrets only lead to speculation

Another East Bay lawmaker, Rep. John Edwards, a Tiverton Democrat, said the optics of RIDOT not disclosing the RFI responses raises concerns.

“When there’s no transparency, people tend to think that people are hiding something,” said Edwards, a member of the House Committee on Oversight. “In government you don’t want people to think you’re hiding anything.”

Block said he thinks the state is holding onto the RFI responses for a reason.

“I’m sure that the reason they’re not releasing it is because it’s going to be embarrassing,” Block said. “Depending on the language that the vendors used, we’re likely to learn some of them looked at the unrealistic time frames of this thing and thought, ‘You guys are smoking something good.’”

“This is a reckoning of the DOT’s own doing,” he added.

Block suggested the RFI comments might reveal that some vendors who might have worked on the bridge in the past feared pending litigation.

“Why would they bother to bid if they’re threatening to sue?” Block said.

Ironically, the transparency the public wants might only happen in court records, Marion said.

“Much of this will become public in the end,” Marion said. “So why not show your cards now?”

This story was updated Aug. 9 to include why the state has shielded the RFI responses behind the APRA law.