Northern Avenue Bridge Fort Point Channel

[whighlander]

I'm not sure if anyone here would be able to answer this but assuming the bridge is a total loss at this point (sadly, probably a safe assumption) I wonder if there is a way to remove it and reuse it as a piece of large-scale urban sculpture elsewhere in the city? Maybe somewhere on the Greenway?

Statler -- an intriguing idea -- but the wrong location

All these new Green Spaces in the Seaport / Innovation District need diversions -- to whit:

• Find a section of the old Northern Ave Bridge which is in relatively good shape
• Give a contract to some local artists to clean and fix it up to be both aesthetic and safe
• Dig a trench and fill it with some water perhaps with some spraying in the air [more work for the Fort Point artists and some local landscape architects
• Locate the bridge section as a real pedestrian crossing over the water feature -- a bit like the crossing in the Public Garden and a bit like the bridge to nowhere in a Japanese Garden

Viola -- a piece of renovated bridge over a real depressed channel with some water situated in one of the new green spaces -- simultaneously un hommage au passé and an œuvre d'art

 

[JeffDowntown]

They do it in the AHF proposal, I think. Thin, gangway style span between two sections of the enclosed bridge that can be pulled up. It can be pretty thin and light, I think, if its supporting only pedestrians.

If it must be movable, then using the 100' movable span from the Congress bridge as a reference, you can do this and still have Envoy-sized footprints at both ends.

I like this.

 

[whighlander]

I like this.

JeffD -- no one is going to rebuild the Northern Ave Bridge only for pedestrians

That extra road connection between the Northern Ave in the Seaport /Innovation District and the streets in the Financial District will play a vital role in the overall travel network for pedestrians, buses, ubers and yes passenger cars

 

[chmeeee]

JeffD -- no one is going to rebuild the Northern Ave Bridge only for pedestrians

That extra road connection between the Northern Ave in the Seaport /Innovation District and the streets in the Financial District will play a vital role in the overall travel network for pedestrians, buses, ubers and yes passenger cars

Amazing how you always speak with such certainty. I'd think you could at least agree with yourself...

Davem -- remember that the reason for the Moakley Bridge was to replace the Northern Ave. Bridge with a fixed span that could admit quite large vessels without the need to open and close. The original plan was to demolish the Northern Ave Bridge to provide a section of the channel with even greater clearance. All of the above was in the enabling legislation at the Federal Level which led to the building of the Moakley.

The only way to retain the Northern Ave:
1) permanently open with some open-able small pedestrian bridges -- preferred alternative
2) permanently closed but jacked-up to permit at least Moakley clearance at high tide
3) retained as a openable draw bridge -- least desirable alternative

In almost none of the alternatives are there any needs for anything except pedestrian crossing

 

[Equilibria]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...ut-with-old/wUy60VQf4ftw3jE2OPDkKN/story.html

"Lynch also wants the bridge to once again carry cars so the fast-growing Seaport District has another outlet for traffic. He said he recently had lunch with federal judges at the Moakley courthouse who raised concerns about gridlock during high-profile trials and its effect on security and public safety.


The congressman himself recently experienced the congestion when he it took him 40 minutes to get from his district office at the other end of the Southie waterfront to City Hall.

“I could have walked it,” he said."

All due respect, sir... take your own advice. You don't realize how hilarious that sounds.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Every word in that quote is so perfectly Lynch that if offered up anonymously you could ID him from the name-dropping, the word "concern", and the violins wailing out sympathy for the hardscrabble life of a top campaign fundraiser.


Shorter: Careerist concern troll gonna troll for his career.

 

[statler]

Done deal.

The City of Boston is planning to take down the deteriorating Northern Avenue Bridge starting in March, officials said Thursday, a decision made more urgent after the Coast Guard warned it could collapse into Fort Point Channel.

I get why it has to come down but I'm still heartbroken over it. I honestly believe that this city is about to lose a big chunk of it's soul that cannot be replaced.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

$15M in sunk cost to dismantle it. City's been given official Coast Guard warning 4 times in 19 years to address the bridge's condition before it got too late. Sat on their thumbs every time including the last-hope urgent action letter in October. Which ironically was when they were negotiating with GE for all this gee-whiz revival of the structure.


Twice in 2 years they ignored every warning through the last about imminent demise of one of their saltwater spans and got hit with a sunk cost removal bill when clock struck midnight. One severed mission-critical services and has no action on replacement. One throws a whole bunch of long-simmering redev plans into chaos and sends them back to the drawing board on what they thought they were going to do.

WTF, Marty?!? This is officially a pattern. You need to investigate BTD and any inspection staff who blew off so many warnings, and get your fucking house in order before even thinking about circulating another set of pretty revised renderings. These things will come in threes.

 

[JeffDowntown]

JeffD -- no one is going to rebuild the Northern Ave Bridge only for pedestrians

That extra road connection between the Northern Ave in the Seaport /Innovation District and the streets in the Financial District will play a vital role in the overall travel network for pedestrians, buses, ubers and yes passenger cars

Northern Avenue is clearly not a vital link for cars, since it has been closed for decades.

The entire alignment of Atlantic Avenue and tunnel entrances for I-93 are set up for Seaport Blvd. Not Northern Avenue.

Someone could certainly make the case for a commercial on-bridge development with a small pedestrian link (although it is dubious that the math works, even though I like it).

For vehicle traffic the road network simply does not work.

 

[citylover94]

Re: Northern Avenue Bridge Fort Point Channel
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDowntown View Post
I like this.
JeffD -- no one is going to rebuild the Northern Ave Bridge only for pedestrians

That extra road connection between the Northern Ave in the Seaport /Innovation District and the streets in the Financial District will play a vital role in the overall travel network for pedestrians, buses, ubers and yes passenger cars

More roads/lanes don't solve congestion anyways it would just encourage people that currently might not drive into the seaport to drive instead of take transit/walk. Even with expected growth adding roads doesn't change much and the seaport won't die from traffic plenty of other areas in the country have bad traffic and limited transit for example LA and are doing fine. The silver line might be slow and poorly thought out but it is there and is perfectly usable and connects directly to South Station/the red line so don't say but no one will be able to get to the seaport because of traffic.

I would support a pedestrian bridge but there isn't a need to build more space for cars in an area that is already criticized because it has so much space devoted to car travel.

 

[stellarfun]

Sounds as if they are going to store the bridge in East Boston, while they decide on a replacement structure. It would seem one option is to repair / rebuild the superstructure and re-create the general, current appearance.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...enue-bridge/Wb8FsZm7UQvY0rJUXFggxO/story.html

 

[stick n move]

Re: Old Northern Ave Bridge

"The city has filed a new permit application that proposes taking down deteriorating sections of the century-old Northern Avenue Bridge, according to The Boston Globe."

"The bridge would be broken down into sections, and floated—intact—on a barge to a city-owned storage yard in East Boston, the Globe reported."


http://www.boston.com/news/2016/02/17/boston-officials-release-plan-take-down-deteriorating-northern-avenue-bridge/kkEnk6ckuMJ5580vb02arK/story.html

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Old Northern Ave Bridge

How much preservation is actually being achieved cutting it into pieces, floating it from one place where the steel is fast-deteriorating from the ravages of the salt air, and storing it for years in another place where the ravages of salt air will have their way with the steel sections now cut up and unprotected at the joints?


This is like stuffing the family dog to pretend it never left this mortal coil. A prolonging of denial. They don't seriously think they're going to be able to bring it back and weld the original materials back together in some sort of partially load-bearing capacity on a span they hope will carry full auto traffic again? Severely degraded structural steel doesn't suddenly un-fatigue itself, much less un-fatigue itself after the metal has been cut up with a blowtorch. This isn't the same as preserving the ornamental ironwork on the Longfellow; the very thing that makes this bridge a 'Thing' to people is the design of the whole fricking intact center span.



I'll make early wager that in 10 years the City Council will be debating whether it's time to haul away the rusting scrap pile in Eastie because people are complaining it's an eyesore. The mourning period just has to run its full course first.

 

[stick n move]

They are asking the public to submit ideas for the bridge and if yours is picked you can win money for your idea.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/03/08/northern-avenue-bridge-restoration-city-hosts-competition/

They asked for designs that pay homage to Boston, similarities to the old northern ave bridge...etc. I messed around for a while trying to draw up a suspension bridge that mimicked the x's and slanted beams on the old bridge. All of them I figured would be unnecessarily expensive and serve no structural purpose for a span this short. I eventually thought fuck it, why not say screw the old bridge (it looks like any steel bridge anywhere its not unique) and why not build a half Zakim.

A version of the Alamillo bridge in Seville Spain would look great here.

The fort point channel is kind of like a half Charles and Boston is known for the Zakim bridge so I thought why not give it a half Zakim. This would be an incredible entrance to the "innovation district", would "evoke Boston" while being unique to Boston, they are cheap to make, and the designs are well established. I think this would be the best option in my opinion. The road deck should be taller than the current bridge, possibly taller than any bridge in the channel to future proof. Also the tower portion of the bridge would add height to the gap in the skyline that the channel creates. Make the top of the tower up to the FAA max in the area or even taller if allowed. I think a mini Zakim is almost as "Boston" as your going to get. A bridge with a tall tower portion would make a great grand entrance to the channel, and in this case it is actually necessary to have.

I would say add a bike path/ped walkways on both sides of the bridge connected to an extended harbor walk, build the tower potion to the FAA max, build it with a higher road deck than what is there now, add some lighting at night, and call it a day.


I whipped up a lil render to see what it would look like. I like it, we don't have the money to get too crazy here. This is a plug and play bridge, copy and paste, save money that we don't have to burn, look good in the process, win win.





If Im not mistaken the Zakim bridge is about 260 feet. I think the FAA limit for this area is right around there so this would actually almost be perfect.

 

[Downburst]

Tilt the main tower structure towards the skyline, and I'm in.

I wonder if such a plan would interfere with boat traffic, even with a higher road deck, but I'd love to see something like this for sure.

 

[stick n move]

Tilt the main tower structure towards the skyline, and I'm in.

I wonder if such a plan would interfere with boat traffic, even with a higher road deck, but I'd love to see something like this for sure.

This would clear out all of the pilings that are there now and would be at least as tall as the Moakley bridge right after it, creating a completely open waterway underneath. Best case scenario it would be taller than the rest of the bridges to leave room to grow in the future when the other bridges are replaced. As it stands now the northern ave bridge is lower than the rest of the bridges and does not allow boats into the channel that would otherwise be able to clear the rest of the bridges. It looks lower than it would be because I just drew it over the northern ave bridge. I didn't feel like editing out the bridge, but it would be higher in real life.





This would end right at the greenway. Imagine visitors walking down the greenway passing fanuel hall, the custom house tower, blackstone market, ...etc and then coming across this towards the end. It would be inviting so people would want to go check it out...thus crossing it and entering the seaport and discovering a whole different neighborhood with a brand new waterfront. I dont see how this could go wrong. I am going to submit this proposal to the BRA with a long description of why I think this is Boston's newest bridge/art piece.

 

[fattony]

How about curving that tower back on itself a bit - evocative of a sail boat and/or the irish harp.

 

[stick n move]

How about curving that tower back on itself a bit - evocative of a sail boat and/or the irish harp.

This way or towards the harbor? And I agree with downburst on the mast being on the skyline side of the channel. It would give a nice slope leading from the taller buildings to the shorter buildings in the seaport, while filling the dead zone in the skyline in between neighborhoods over the water. This would also lead to I believe possibly even more of a skyline defining bridge than the Zakim because to get the waterfront skyline shot you cannot see the Zakim Bridge. Obviously the Zakim is king but I just mean when it comes to a waterfront skyline shot of Boston this could become even more of an icon if built, because it would be in every shot taken. Not to mention eventually Fort point is going to be a development hot spot once the post office moves. What is a bigger selling point than having another cable stay view? The Seaport office/residential tower inhabitants gain an even better view, thus making the seaport even more valuable. Also from seaport square this would be the capstone piece along with another artistic expression along the greenway. I don't think you can go wrong with this one. The huge benefit artistically of cable stay bridges is that they need a tall mast. Thus bringing elegant new views for everybody to enjoy. They are also relatively cheap when it comes to bridges which is another huge plus.


After I made this I also realized that by moving the mast to this side of the channel it would fall under a taller FAA height limit so it could be even taller than shown here. Regardless I think this is an appropriate size and fits the scale nicely.

 

[stefal]

This would end right at the greenway. Imagine visitors walking down the greenway passing fanuel hall, the custom house tower, blackstone market, ...etc and then coming across this towards the end. It would be inviting so people would want to go check it out...thus crossing it and entering the seaport and discovering a whole different neighborhood with a brand new waterfront. I dont see how this could go wrong. I am going to submit this proposal to the BRA with a long description of why I think this is Boston's newest bridge/art piece.

I'm sold. We need this.

 

[stellarfun]

The Coast Guard has said that 16 feet vertical clearance is required, meaning a fixed roadway would be 20 feet above the water.