THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION – HIGHWAY DIVISION
NOTICE OF A PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING
PROJECT FILE NO. 604173
A Public Information meeting will be held by MassDOT to discuss the replacement of the North Washington Street Bridge over the inner harbor in the City of Boston, MA.
WHERE: Nazzaro Community Center
30 N Bennet Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02113
WHEN: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 @ 6:30PM
PURPOSE: The purpose of this meeting is to provide the public with the opportunity to become fully acquainted with progress made over the past nine months on advancing the design for the replacement North Washington Street Bridge from the 25% design level to the 75% design level. The meeting will also provide additional information regarding traffic management plans for the construction period and proposed transit accommodations on the new bridge. All views and comments made at the meeting will be reviewed and considered to the fullest extent possible.
PROJECT: The proposed project consists of a replacement of the structurally deficient North Washington Street Bridge which carries North Washington Street over the inner Boston Harbor. The proposed structure includes vehicular travel lanes, a dedicated bus lane, and separated bicycle and pedestrian facilities on either side of the span. Context sensitive design will be discussed and renderings of the new structure, advanced to reflect the 75% design level will be shown.
Written views received by MassDOT subsequent to the date of this notice and up to five (5) days prior to the date of the meeting shall be displayed for public inspection and copying at the time and date listed above. Plans will be on display one-half hour before the meeting begins, with an engineer in attendance to answer questions regarding this project. A project handout will be made available on the MassDOT website listed below.
Written statements and other exhibits in place of, or in addition to, oral statements made at the Public Meeting regarding the proposed undertaking are to be submitted to Patricia Leavenworth, P.E., Chief Engineer, MassDOT, 10 Park Plaza, Boston, MA 02116, ATTN: Bridge Project Management, Project File No. 604173. Such submissions will also be accepted at the meeting. Mailed statements and exhibits intended for inclusion in the public meeting transcript must be postmarked within ten (10) business days of this Public Meeting. Project inquiries may be emailed to dot.feedback.highway@state.ma.us
This location is accessible to people with disabilities. MassDOT provides reasonable accommodations and/or language assistance free of change upon request (including but not limited to interpreters in American Sign Language and languages other than English, open and closed captioning for videos, assistive listening devices and alternative material formats, such as audio tapes, Braille and large print), as available. For accommodations or language assistance, please contact MassDOT’s Chief Diversity and Civil Rights Officer by phone (857) 368-8580, fax (857) 368-0602, TTD/TTY (857)368-0603 or by email MassDOT.CivilRights@dot.state.ma.us. Request should be made as soon as possible prior to the meeting, and for more difficult to arrange services including sign-language, CART or language translation or interpretation, request should be made at least ten (10) days before the meeting.
In case of inclement weather, hearing cancellation announcements will be posted on the internet at www.massdot.state.ma.us/highway
THOMAS J. TINLIN PATRICIA LEAVENWORTH, P.E.
HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATOR CHIEF ENGINEER
Enough feedback and review. For this bridge and damn near everything else in the built environment, design is subjective, utility is essential, and enabling multiple community feedback opportunities to placate pious blowhards is costly as hell. As a layman I’m willing to concede I don’t know anything about bridge building, but I have a small idea about how to cut costs. One of them is to realize if I concede my lack of expertise, and say nothing, projects are cheaper and likely better. Our taxes support educated engineers and experts who went to school to learn how to build bridges. Apparently, they also now go toward legions of facilitators, existing solely to assuage the shakedown or outlast the self-appointed opposition. If we’ve learned nothing else from the Big Dig we should know that if we’d done it sooner it would have been much cheaper. A solid third of the $15 billion went to “mitigation” – a nice word meaning payoffs to shut people up already. I can guarantee that the existing North Washington Street bridge went up in a fraction of the time, a comparable fraction of the cost and people celebrated it when it was done. For this and most other projects we’ll all encounter I say: Pick your battles, otherwise, sit down, shut up, and let those who have thought it through do their thing!
Y do we need the stupid bike lanes that will take up more space
And a bus lane too come on please get with it
Both will be a bad idea ok
Yep. In a perfect world, everyone in the north end would have a car, a fake handicap placecard, and an orange cone to save their parking space. And it would also still be 1981! Things would be so much better.
Truth I’m not sure your are accurate here. Heavy traffic builds up over this bridge starting as early as 2:30 every single day. The bridge was originally designed for 3 lanes.
With the addition of a Casino and the work they are doing to the TD Garden traffic will only get worse.
A 3rd lane of traffic should be added instead of giant magnificent bike lanes.
You should know better than to stereotype like you do.We know where your coming from.
I attended the October `19 public meeting about the North Washington Street Bridge, and I have sent written comments about the project. I have also posted them online and you may read them at http://streetsmarts.bostonbiker.org/2016/10/25/my-comments-on-the-north-washington-street-bridge-project/