Never Built Charles River Bridges?

[davem]

So most of us know of the never brought to fruition Dartmouth Street Bridge (although I'd love to compile some more information on it).

But was there ever a more recent plan to connect Binney Street in Cambridge with Blossom Street in the West End? Both are oddly large capacity roads, even for the era they were built. Were they just overbuilt, or was there a plan to build another bridge between the Longfellow and Cragie?


Does anyone know of other Charles River crossings below the Watertown dam that were planned and never built, or removed? The only other one I can think of is the temporary bridge while the BU bridge was being built. I wouldn't count predecessors in this.

 

[kz1000ps]

That's a really good observation, but they were widened at two completely different times--Blossom got redone when the West End was leveled circa 1960 while Binney didn't get its overhaul until circa 1980--and by the time they both were done I'd have to imagine the Esplanade had long been consecrated as sacred parkland, and especially so since by 1980 the era of building roads at any cost would've been long gone.

Still, I totally get what you're talking about...they look like long-lost siblings just waiting to be reunited.

 

[kz1000ps]

Goddamnit I love the internet; leave it to freakin Wiki to lead me to the source in all of three steps.

So Binney was expanded under direction of the 1978 East Cambridge Riverfront Plan, and the pdf of the original document can be yours by going here and clicking the first link in the list: http://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/publ...ang=en&ObjectDatabaseID=web&ResultsPerPage=15

 

[Charlie_mta]

Here's a 1960's proposal for an Inner Belt Expressway bridge at the BU Bridge location:

 

[statler]

Oof.

 

[Matthew]

If I had to walk under that thing every day...ugh.

 

[nm88]

Dodged a bullet there.