As folks here in Upper Falls know, Echo Bridge’s iconic echo has been seriously degraded in recent years. A combination of grime, small plant growth, and crumbling mortar on the underside of the bridge has resulted in a 27% degradation in echo amplitude as compared to when the bridge was built, so that the number of audible echoes has dropped from 19 to 7.
Engineers at the MWRA have built this remarkable model of the physics of the echo and they predict that within 8-10 years, if left untended, we will totally lose the echo of bridge. As Tom Farkus of the MWRA puts it “In 10 years, the Echo Bridge echo will be a faint echo of its former grandeur”.
To head off the loss of the bridge’s namesake echo, the MWRA has just launched an aggressive echo restoration project this week. In the weeks to come they’ll be filling, scraping, sealing and polishing the surface.
By June the MWRA says they the bridge should be back to 99.7% of its maximum theoretical echo.
NOTE: This was one of the many 2016 April Fools stories. Sadly, the Echo Bridge echo remains un-refurbished to this day.
