On the radio, Alviti claims he 'did not ignore' Washington Bridge warnings.

Rhode Island Transportation Director Peter Alviti Jr. for the first time Thursday acknowledged the history of expert warnings about the condition of the westbound Washington Bridge detailed in a Journal investigation earlier in the week.

But appearing in his weekly spot on WPRO-radio, Alviti said the bleak engineering assessments of the bridge in 2012 and 2014 were contradicted by reports that later suggested the bridge, while in poor condition, didn't require emergency action.

"That report was contradicted by two other engineers," Alviti told host Gene Valicenti on Thursday. "There was a conflict from report to report, depending upon which one you read. This is what I was facing when I walked in the door. DOT did not have their act together with regard to how to decide which bridges needed to be fixed, nor did they have the money or plan to fix any of them."

Report in question said bridge did not meet strength requirements

The structural analysis conducted for the state by AECOM in 2014 and published just before Alviti became DOT director in 2015 found that, without repairs, the bridge did not meet structural strength requirements and would need to have a truck weight limit. It came on the heels of reports in 2009 and 2012 that had identified similar although slightly less severe problems, The Journal reported Wednesday.

In 2017, under DOT instructions, AECOM load-tested the bridge and concluded it was stronger than their models or previous evaluations.

Alviti said on Thursday that the 2017 AECOM report that turned out more positive came at his direction as part of a "new baseline" for all 230 bridges the state hoped to repair.

More: A report warned the state about the Washington Bridge in 2015. Why was nothing done?

"And those reports I knew were current and we based our decisions on those reports," Alviti said Thursday. "It worked for all 230 other ones, but on Washington Bridge, something happened and that's what our forensic teams are studying."

Washington Bridge repair contracts were canceled because of the bridge's poor condition

The reasons behind the sudden bridge upgrade are not clear, and subsequent findings revealed it was in much worse condition than expected and will need to be torn down.

A Washington Bridge repair project started after the 2017 report was canceled while in progress in part because the contractor hired for the job found much more work needed to be done. A separate contractor hired to finish the job in 2021 found the bridge in much worse condition than expected, and its engineers eventually uncovered the damage that led to the shutdown.

Before Thursday, Alviti told reporters and state lawmakers that he was told there had never been any warnings or recommendations from anyone that the bridge might need a truck weight limit due to its condition.

The DOT declined multiple Journal requests for comment on any of the Washington Bridge inspection reports or technical analyses.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Alviti acknowledges past warnings on Washington Bridge, says he 'did not ignore' them