I-Team: I-91 Viaduct in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - It's a stretch of highway that we've all been on.  From getting our kids to school to moving cargo or just getting to work; more than 200,000 cars travel on the Interstate 91 viaduct in Springfield each day.  Simplified, a viaduct is an elevated bridge over land.  

The 22News I-Team discovers why the I-91 Viaduct in Springfield is endangered. 

It's an investigation the 22News I-Team has been working on for weeks.   The Interstate 91 Viaduct in Springfield is a 2.5 mile stretch of highway that's slowly falling apart and there's no money set aside to build something new.  

When you drive through Springfield on Interstate 91, you're driving on the Springfield Viaduct.  It's a superstructure that stretches from State Street to I-291.  Built more than more than 40 years ago, its days are numbered. 

"If we don't do something about it, it will fall apart, but it is certainly safe today", says Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Richard Davey.

Secretary Davey told the 22news I-team they have inspectors here at least once a year, looking at everything from cracks in the concrete to the condition of the steel.  

The 22News I-Team went to the Department of Transportation in Boston and obtained a copy of the 2011 inspection report of the Interstate 91 viaduct in Springfield.

In it, descriptions and pictures of "wide longitudinal cracks", "heavy section loss" and
"heavy rust."  The deck, which is what you drive on is in POOR condition.  Two stages away from being in a critical condition. 

(Is 91 in that section, is it crumbling, is it dangerous or could it be dangerous in the near future?)

"The bottom line is in the near future we have to do something with the roadway", says Davey.

The timeline isn't exact, but the next five to ten years isn't out of the question.

"It's not imminent, but certainly over the next several years.  It is old, it is not in a good state of repair, which means we have to invest in it at some point", says Davey. 

Money that just isn't there.  A price tag of at least $350 million dollars.

"It is at the top of a very long list of projects that are not currently funded that we have to find the funding for", says Davey.

"It's a very expensive project, but it's not something that we can avoid", says Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Executive Director, Tim Brennan."

"It's just so urgent you can't deny it's going to command the funds that it needs", says Brennan.

About $8 million is set aside to study this project.  The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission's Regional Transportation Report in 2011 calls for the eventual need to replace the superstructure within the next ten years.  

Another option is to take down the viaduct completely.  

"In other parts of the state, other parts of the world, they're removing viaducts.  I think we're going to have as fresh thinking as possible working with the city, about what could be for Springfield", says Davey.

Congressman Richard Neal told the 22News I-Team there is no federal money for a project like this now. 

Secretary Davey says the state has started preliminary talks with the city.