Longfellow Bridge update

The Globe said:
Longfellow Bridge faces immediate inspection, review

By Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff | August 9, 2007

The Longfellow Bridge will undergo an immediate state inspection and a comprehensive 40-day review by a private consultant to determine whether repairs are warranted in advance of a full-scale renovation beginning in about 2010, officials said yesterday.

Transportation officials said they were moving up the bridge's annual inspection, due in September, following last week's collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis.

The Longfellow is among two dozen Massachusetts bridges that are similar in design to the Minneapolis span and whose inspection reports Bay State officials scrutinized as a result of the disaster.

"Our review of the inspection reports found no new information," said Transportation spokesman John Lamontagne. "This is an extra precaution. But there's no question that the bridge is in need of repair."

The 100-year-old bridge is considered structurally deficient by federal standards and is due for a major rehabilitation that could cost up to $200 million.

That designation does not mean the bridge is dangerous, but that it needs monitoring and repairs.

Still, because of its age and condition, the state will spend $350,000 to hire an outside company to conduct a 40-day review of the bridge this month, said Wendy Fox, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which owns the bridge. The analysis could prompt short-term repairs.

In addition to the immediate, three-day inspection by DCR, the 40-day review will involve placing barges underneath a bridge; using lifts to let engineers do hands-on inspections; taking readings of the steel's thickness; and examining every truss, nut, bolt, and rivet, said Lamontagne.

Also yesterday, an inspection revealed an expanding sink hole beneath a bridge tender's house on the Blyman Bridge, which takes Route 127 across the Annisquam River in Gloucester. As a result, the Massachusetts Highway Department decided to leave the heavily traveled drawbridge down and to close off the area to boat traffic.

Drivers will be able to continue using the bridge, and boaters were not in danger. However, the foundation had eroded and was in a weakened condition at the tender's house, where the drawbridge is operated, Lamontagne said. The bridge is also considered structurally deficient by federal standards.

Steve Magoon, chief administrative officer to Mayor John Bell of Gloucester, said MassHighway assured the city in a late afternoon meeting that the state "will immediately begin some short-term repairs so we can get back to the point of having the bridge operational."

He said state official estimated the work would take two to three weeks.

The waterway closure comes during peak boating season, and the largest local whale-watching tour company will be heavily affected.

Carol Hill, co-owner of Yankee Fishing and Whale Watch, said their nine boats can take a way around Cape Ann that is 20 minutes longer and will use more gas.

Kay Lazar of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com.
Click to expand...
Link

Is anyone else more concerned about the BU Bridge? I swear that thing is being held together with chewing gum and duct tape. :shock:
 
Today's papers also have complaints from a Chelsea yacht club that pieces of the Tobin are falling onto their boats.
 
Cost prohibitive?

Okay, why not ask something I already know the answer to ...

But, anyway.

How much would it cost to build an entirely new Longfellow Bridge?

We can save the salt and pepper shakers, but create something new. Make it easier to get on and off - and widen the walkway.

It's not as if the existing bridge was the only one ever there ... it's a replacement, itself.

Let's consider all options, before making a decision.

Oh, I know, it'll never happen.
 
Someday it will happen, because bridges don't last forever. The Longfellow is the third bridge to be built on this site (if you include a temporary bridge that was in service after the West Boston Bridge was demolished and the Longfellow was not yet open).

But I don't even want to think about the logistics of building a new bridge, necessarily on a different alignment, while keeping the current one in service. You can't just demo it to build a new one on the same spot, not with the Red Line running over it.
 
The only way I could see that working is if they extended the Blue Line to Kendall Sq. You would have two sections of Red Line connected by the Blue Line. The car traffic could just use the Harvard Bridge or the one by the Museum of Science (name escapes me).
 
I think the Museum of Science bridge is just called the Charles River Dam.

Extending the Blue Line to Kendall seems superfluous. Why not just build a Red Line tunnel to avoid the problem during future bridge replacements (or is the experience of viewing the skyline from Red Line trains too valuable to surrender?)
 
The only problem with a Red Line tunnel is that they would have to tear up that whole section of Beacon Hill to reroute it. The Blue Line would already be underground and it would allow the Blue Line to be extended further into Cambridge somewhere.
 
The drawbridge over the Charles River, next to the Science Museum, is called the Craigie Bridge. I've seen it on a list of bridges needing immediate attention.
 
The Globe said:
Deteriorating beams found on Longfellow Bridge

By Globe Staff

The Longfellow Bridge, which is being scrutinized by the state because of its age and its similarity to the Minnesota span that collapsed earlier this month, needs more repairs, state officials said today.

Two beams on the venerable bridge over the Charles are deteriorated and need to be replaced, said Wendy Fox, a spokeswoman for the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

"This is a 100-year-old bridge. It's not surprising to find this kind of thing. What you want to do is fix it, and that's what we're doing," Fox said.

The "jack beams" were added to the bridge to support other beams. Fox said they were corroded enough that they needed to be replaced immediately.

State officials said repair work will be undertaken at night, beginning tonight. Two to three nights of work might be needed, but the bridge will not have to be closed to traffic.

Fox said the bridge is "wonderful in its redundancy," noting that it has 11 arches and 100,000 pieces of steel in it.

"If one thing goes, there's something else to hold it up," she said.

"If we thought for one minute this bridge was not safe, we would close it," she said.

The Longfellow is undergoing a 40-day review by a private consultant. The bridge is considered structurally deficient by federal standards and is due for a major rehabilitation that could cost up to $200 million.

Last week, crews began removing 200-pound decorative strips from the side of the bridge. The strips had become loosened and officials didn't want them falling in the water.
Posted by the Boston Globe City & Region Desk at 03:58 PM
Click to expand...
Link
 
statler said:
The Globe said:
The Longfellow Bridge, which is being scrutinized by the state because of its age and its similarity to the Minnesota span that collapsed earlier this month, needs more repairs, state officials said today.
Click to expand...
Link
Click to expand...


I never would have guessed these two bridges were similar in design.
 
Here is the link to the Pioneer Institutes's study of the bridge: link

Credit to Blue Mass Group for the link.
 
Decorative trim from Longfellow Bridge missing
The Boston Globe

A large quantity of cast-iron decorative trim for the Longfellow Bridge has gone missing from the state storage yard where it was being stored while the bridge undergoes repairs, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation said today.

The DCR said that about 2,347 linear feet of the trim had disappeared from the Stoneham Labor Yard -- and it had asked the district attorney's office to investigate.

"We at DCR are shocked and outraged by the disappearance of this historic metalwork, a unique feature of the Longfellow Bridge that we planned to restore along with the bridge," DCR Commissioner Richard K. Sullivan Jr. said in a statement. "We take this very seriously."

Sullivan urged anyone with information on the incident to come forward. He said other storage yards were being reviewed to ensure that other DCR property is secure.

Between Sept. 20 and Oct. 9, about 3,647 linear feet of the decorative parapet coping was removed from the outside edge of the bridge to make way for repairs. The state planned to refurbish the sections and reattach them.

Sections that were 7 feet long, 2 feet wide, 3.8 inches thick, and weighed 350 pounds were placed onto trucks. They were stacked in piles of 13 or 14 at the yard. As recently as three weeks ago, all the sections appeared to be there.

DCR spokeswoman Wendy Fox had no comment on what might have happened to the trim, noting that an investigation was under way.
Click to expand...

Link: Decorative trim from Longefellow Bridge missing
 
State officials reopen Longfellow Bridge lane to traffic

Cambridge -

The state?s Department of Conservation and Recreation officials Friday announced that effective immediately, both lanes of Boston-to-Cambridge traffic on the Longfellow Bridge will be open, and large trucks will once again be allowed to cross the bridge in that direction, according to a press release.

On June 28, the inside lanes in both directions on the Longfellow were closed to all traffic, and trucks weighing 20 tons and more were prohibited from the bridge entirely. Since then, DCR has completed necessary repairs to the downstream, Boston-to-Cambridge side of the bridge, and both lanes in that direction are being reopened for all traffic.

Repairs continue under the Cambridge-to-Boston lanes and large trucks are still prohibited from traveling on that side. Those repairs are expected to be completed, and that side reopened to all traffic, within about three months.

?With the summer vacation season ending and residents resuming their normal school and work routines, DCR is very happy to be able to reopen one side of the Longfellow Bridge to all traffic and ease congestion on both sides of the Charles River,? said DCR Commissioner Richard K. Sullivan Jr. ?DCR crews have worked extremely hard over the last two months to get this bridge back into good condition, and I commend their efforts.?

This past week, Federal Highway Administration officials agreed with state officials from DCR and the state Highway Department that restrictions on the Boston-to-Cambridge side of the bridge could be lifted. In June, the administration had recommended that DCR prohibit trucks weighing more than 20 tons from the bridge, and restrict all traffic from the inside lanes, until repairs could be complete.

On Friday, in a written communication to DCR and MassHighway officials, Lucy Garliauskas, FHWA Division Administratior, said, ?We concur with MassHighwayAdministration?s August 28, approval letter ... to allow the downstream Cambridge-bound traffic to be restored with a statutory truck posting limitation.?

Statutory limits on the Longfellow allow trucks with as many as five axles and weighing up to 40 tons to cross the bridge.

In the last year, DCR has spent more than $1 million on inspections and approximately $7 million on repairs to the Longfellow Bridge. More than 254 jack beams and 220 stringers have been replaced, and more than railing brackets have been repaired.
Click to expand...

LINK
 
2 workers nailed in Longfellow iron theft
By Mike Underwood |
Friday, September 12, 2008

Two state employees have been charged with stealing $500,000 worth of historic, decorative iron - swiped from the ailing Longfellow Bridge - then selling it to a scrap yard for just $12,000. Department of Conservation and Recreation District Manager Richard Stewart, 42, of Saugus and employee Joseph Falzone, 43, of Nashua, N.H., are accused of stealing more than 300 pieces of the bridge from a DCR yard in Stoneham this summer.

The pair allegedly used a DCR Bobcat forklift to heave the iron into a DCR dump truck, then drove it to a scrap yard in Everett where they sold their haul, according to Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone?s office.
Stewart already was on suspension from the DCR on similar allegations, Leone said.

?It is a violation of the public trust made all the more outrageous when you consider that they stole more than $500,000 worth of historic, public property to make $12,000 for themselves,? he added.

Stewart and Falzone were arraigned yesterday at Malden District Court, where prosecutor Elisha Willis said the men made 12 round trips with an iron-laden truck from the Stoneham yard to Everett over four weekends in July and August.

?We are outraged this occurred at the department,? said DCR Commissioner Rick Sullivan. ?We have suspended both employees without pay. We take this extremely seriously. These types of actions will not be tolerated.?

The scam was uncovered Sept. 4 when the DCR reported to police that almost 100,000 pounds of the decorative iron, removed from the Longfellow Bridge as part of a major refurbishment project, vanished from the Stoneham yard.

State police detectives said surveillance footage and analysis of tire tracks led them to suspect Stewart and Falzone had used certain vehicles at certain times to ship the iron to Everett.

Leone said the scrap yard in Everett was unaware the iron was stolen. He said the stolen metal was either melted down or cut up.

The men each were charged with 12 counts of receiving stolen goods and 12 counts of conspiracy to receive stolen goods.

In court, Stewart denied the allegations while Falzone claimed he helped ship the iron as part of his work duties, but made no money from the venture and had no idea the metal was from the Longfellow Bridge.

Judge Lee Johnson ordered the men held on $7,500 cash bail and scheduled a pretrial hearing for October 6.
Click to expand...


http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1118550
 
What effect will this have on the ultimate appearance of the bridge?

These guys are crooks. Why was bail set so low?
 
ablarc said:
What effect will this have on the ultimate appearance of the bridge?

These guys are crooks. Why was bail set so low?
Click to expand...

The Herald had a mugshot of one.

I expect that rather than refurbishing these decorative elements, they will now re-cast the pieces new. I believe that some of this ornamental iron remains on the bridge, so there is a mold.
 
Shouldn't the receiving scrap metal yards be held fully responsible to pay for this? I don't see why the taxpayers should pay at all.
 
The folks at the scrap yard probably never knew what they had.

The DPW workers come in with the truck, the truck gets weighed, the yards works ask what in the truck, the DPW guys say 'steel', "Ok dump it over in that pile over there", it gets quickly covered by the next load (there are lines of trucks dumping stuff). The whole pile gets scooped up and ground up and shipped to Asia.
 
I don't see how that matters. Send them a bill, and if they don't pay it, seize their property. It's certainly more their fault than it is the taxpayers'.
 
^^ What you are doing is setting a legal requirement for scrap yards to trace and verify the origins of every piece of metal that comes into their yard.

It's logistically impossible and any judge in their right mind would laugh it out of court.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top