Peter Alviti, who led the Rhode Island Department of Transportation through the closure of the westbound Washington Bridge and its immediate aftermath, will retire later this month, according to an announcement by the governor on Wednesday.
Gov. Dan McKee said his administration will conduct a nationwide search for Alviti’s replacement. Robert Rocchio, a longtime RIDOT employee who currently serves as chief engineer for infrastructure, will take over as interim director at the end of February.
Rocchio has worked at RIDOT for his entire 33-year career, after graduating from the University of Rhode Island in 1992, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“As the Washington Bridge project moves from demolition into the rebuild phase, I am confident that Bob Rocchio will provide the steady leadership and engineering expertise we need — not only for this crucial project, but for the many infrastructure improvements that are underway across our state,” McKee said in a prepared statement about Alviti’s retirement. “We recognize Director Alviti’s many years of state service across two administrations and wish him well.”
Alviti was the face of the McKee administration’s response to the Washington Bridge closure, taking fierce criticism as he explained to the public how a critical section of Interstate-195 fell into a dangerous level of disrepair.
He eventually oversaw the bridge’s demolition and the selection of a company to build a replacement.
At a legislative oversight hearing where he faced questioning in November, Alviti defended RIDOT’s management of the bridge’s annual inspections, which were performed by a series of different private contractors, none of whom warned officials of major impending infrastructural problems.
Alviti blamed the contractors for failing to perform their duties, although his department continued to hire many of the same contractors to perform other bridge inspections in Rhode Island.
McKee’s administration currently projects that a new westbound span of the Washington Bridge will open in November 2028.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
