State to build temporary bridge next to North Washington Street bridge next year

By adamg on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 10:10pm

MassDOT said today it will be a temporary bridge next to the North Washington Street bridge next year so that people can continue to get between the North End and Charlestown until the old bridge is permanently replaced by 2023.

The temporary bridge will be located next to the current bridge structure and will help promote reliable travel and minimize impacts to MBTA bus service. This will ensure that motorists have a minimum of three total travel lanes throughout the duration of the project, while providing access for bicyclists and pedestrians and reducing the need to rely on the existing bridge structure to carry traffic.

The temporary span means the playground in Paul Revere Park on the Charlestown side will have to be moved further into the park, but MassDOT says the replacement will get unspecified new amenities.

Construction on the temporary bridge is expected to begin this spring. State officials say they will hold public meetings in Charlestown, the North End and the West End before works begins.

State officials say the temporary bridge can be built as part of the existing $177-million budget for replacing the old bridge. The new span, which will look nothing like the current 118-year-old iron-lattice bridge, will include dedicated bus and bike lanes, plantings and benches from which to take in the view.

MassDOT info on the new bridge.

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North Washington Street Bridge

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Comments

Oh Good

By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 10:27pm.

I hope it has bike lanes on it - not holding my breath, but it would be nice.

In any case, they need to double the capacity of the chicanery over the locks at the dam - need to do it anyway!

Ha!

By Tito on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 10:28pm.

“Temporary!” What a joke! Lynn has a “temporary bridge too. I believe it was built during the Romney administration!

Lowell has got that beat easily

By anon on Tue, 10/16/2018 - 7:59am.

The Rourke temporary bridge over the Merrimack in Lowell was built in 1983.

Fore River Came Close

By SwirlyGrrl on Tue, 10/16/2018 - 1:32pm.

The temporary bridge went well beyond its use by date because the permanent bridge design was found to have serious flaws and it was back to the drawing board.

The temp bridge went up in the 90s and the new bridge just opened in the last couple of years.

that's a scary bridge

By Ron Newman on Tue, 10/16/2018 - 1:58pm.

Not knowing any better, I biked over it because maps said it was the shortest route to my destination, the Lowell Elks Lodge. I found a different (longer, but saner) way back to the train station after the event.

For the same price?

By Jay on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 10:35pm.

Call me a skeptic but I find it hard to believe that they're going to will a span across the harbor like that for the same amount of money as replacing the current bridge with a new one.

A lot of the cost is various mitigations

By tedpk on Tue, 10/16/2018 - 1:20pm.

When you are building a bridge from scratch -- you just build it with Big Machines and lots of prefabricated pieces that just need to be installed

Look at the Comm Ave Bridge replacement -- it took about 3 months spread over 2 years with the real traffic blocking only involving tens of hours

However -- If you have to take apart an old one piece by piece while you build in the midst of it and still try to keep traffic moving-- Well then the construction work involves a lot of moving this and that back and forth -- lots of labor is involved-- e.g. Longfellow Bridge rebuild -- took years

And of course in the is day and age -- a lot of the work actually is consultants preparing for the permits needed -- once again the temporary span should be much faster to permit -- since all of the temporary stull will be removed when the work is finished

This is of course predicated on Rational Behavior from the CLF -- Ultimately that is the big Big BIG unknown!!

Outdated link

By Charles Bahne on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 10:49pm.

The link you cite to the MassDOT website says nothing about a temporary bridge and says that construction is anticipated to begin in late summer/early fall 2018, continuing through 2022. I think they've missed the boat on that construction date, and -- according to your article -- they've already extended the construction period another year at the far end.

Construction did begin this

By DTP on Tue, 10/16/2018 - 8:37am.

Construction did begin this year. Not all construction operations are obviously visible to passing motorists.

There's a lot of utility relocation, test boring, etc. that has to be done before the heavy work can start.

Is there an election coming up?

By anon on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 11:34pm.

After cancelling and delaying lots of transportation projects the first part of his term, a whole bunch of projects and studies are all of a sudden being announced, is Baker running for something?

I'm a bit confused by this.

By DTP on Tue, 10/16/2018 - 8:40am.

I'm a bit confused by this. The most recent publicly released staging plans only involve a temporary bridge to carry the north sidewalk, within the footprint of the existing bridge (i.e. north sidewalk closes for 12 months, during which they demolish that part of the bridge and build a temporary bridge for just that sidewalk, which remains in place for the duration of construction).

I'm going to see if I can get my hands on more recent plans to figure out what is going on here, because this sounds like a significant change to the construction staging.