Michael Lewis, head of the state Department of Transportation, is apologizing to motorists ahead of time for any “confusion and frustration” caused by roadwork.

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The Providence Journal Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — State transportation officials said yesterday that they plan $200 million in road and bridge construction this year, along with a step toward replacing a major bridge and a complicated series of changes affecting highway traffic in the city.

Michael Lewis, director of the state Department of Transportation, apologized ahead of time for the “confusion and frustration” the construction work may cause and said his agency will try to give drivers as much warning as possible and to minimize the disruption.

The DOT is in the midst of a number of major projects and is trying to get started on some others, largely to catch up with the continued deterioration of some of the state’s most important bridges.

One of the agency’s larger problems is the decaying Sakonnet River Bridge, which carries Route 24 from Tiverton across the river to Portsmouth. That steel arch and truss bridge is rusting away, with the state repairing it while it gets ready to replace it. The bridge already has a weight limit of 22 tons, meaning that most fully loaded tractor-trailers aren’t supposed to cross it.

The DOT plans to replace the bridge with one built immediately to the south of the existing one, but has put off the major step of putting the replacement bridge out to bid. Frank Corrao III, the agency’s deputy chief engineer for construction, said yesterday that the DOT wants that to happen in time to open the bids this summer. The agency also said that the related Main Road Bridge replacement project in Tiverton should be finished this summer.

The DOT officials described their plans at a news conference next to the eastbound span of the Washington Bridge, which is being replaced. They said that should be finished by the end of the year.

Corrao said the department will finish construction of Route 403 in East Greenwich and North Kingstown, the new highway from Route 4 to the state industrial park at Quonset Point, this summer.

In Providence, the DOT opened the first section of the relocated Route 195 last November. This year there will be a series of lane, ramp and bridge openings and closings beginning next month and continuing through the end of the year.

The changes, which took the DOT two pages of terse prose to describe, will involve closing four ramps and opening five others, some of them permanently and some temporarily.

Those changes reflect the DOT’s attempts to keep traffic moving while shifting it from the existing Route 195 and its interchange with Route 95 near the city’s downtown to the new section of highway, and new interchange, which is being built farther south.

Officials said this year will also see the opening of the new pedestrian bridge across Route 195 on the East Side, re-connecting the Fox Point neighborhood with India Point Park.

The DOT also said that sidewalk and intersection improvements on Block Island, in the area of Corn Neck Road, Old Town Road, Dodge Street and Ocean Avenue, should be finished this fall.

blandis@projo.com