The City of Richmond is asking for federal funding to help pay for its $195 million plan to build a new Mayo Bridge with fewer lanes, and more space for cyclists and pedestrians.
The new Mayo Bridge would be built east of the existing structures, have one travel lane for cars in each direction instead of two, buffered bicycle lanes, a sidewalk and a shared-use path, according to the grant application. It would also be the only access point for a future park on Mayo Island, help improve road safety and address critical infrastructure needs, the city said.
"The community and City staff all took great care to think comprehensively about what we will need from a new Mayo Bridge design," Mayor Danny Avula said in a statement Thursday. “The two-lane design meets my goals for a safer, human-scale bridge that builds towards a future with more walking, biking, and access to the proposed park on Mayo Island."
Officials laid out details of the proposed project, first reported by Richmond BizSense, in a federal grant application seeking $25 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development grant program.
Without this “essential” federal funding, the city said the 112-year-old bridge that connects Manchester and Shockoe Slip will be “unusable to the public” in 10 years, and people would only be able to access the planned 16-acre Mayo Island Park by kayak.
“Replacing the Mayo Bridge will enable Richmond to maintain an essential link between its two banks of the James River – the location of which has been critical for almost the entirety of Richmond’s history – and improve transportation safety for future generations with this 75 to 100 year investment,” the city wrote in its application.
Shutting down the bridge in 2035 would reroute buses and require drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to find other routes across the James River. The closure could limit people’s access to their workplaces, increase travel times for emergency vehicles, lead to higher costs and more vehicle emissions, the city wrote.
In its grant request, the city said, “fatalities and serious injuries on the Mayo Bridge are nearly twice as high as the statewide average.”
The new bridge’s bike lanes would be 6 feet wide and have 5-foot-wide buffers in each direction. The bike lanes would also separate the proposed bridge’s sidewalk and shared-use path from car lanes.
Two neighborhood groups — The Manchester Alliance and the Shockoe Partnership — worked with other regional partners, including Venture Richmond and Bike Walk RVA, to inform residents about the effort and increase community engagement.
“We knew that our neighborhoods cared very much that the bridge become safer, more accessible for pedestrians,” said Janet Woodka, The Manchester Alliance's chairperson. “We thought, well, now obviously people are going to want to walk and bike, and take their kids [across], and this bridge needs to be safe and walkable. It's not really a car-centric alley anymore.”
Woodka wasn’t concerned about financing for the new bridge, saying other federal funding sources are available.
Brantley Tyndall, director of Bike Walk RVA, called the proposal a “clear win” for the community.
“The current bridge very clearly does not serve the biking and walking community,” Tyndall told VPM News. “It's dangerous and crumbling, and just has a perception that it lacks safety.”
The bridge “carries nearly 36,000 person-trips per day over the James River,” including about 700 people who walk or bike across it daily,” the city said.
The city’s initial plan was to replace the bridge’s surface — a project with a $90 million price tag — but shifted toward full replacement after a chemical reaction that advances concrete deterioration was found in at least one of the bridge’s piers.
Just over $88 million has been allocated for the project using federal, state and local programs. Another nearly $82 million is expected to come from the city, the Central Virginia Transportation Authority and/or the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The $25 million in federal funding would cover nearly 13% of the project’s anticipated costs, according to the city’s grant application.
