Repairs to the bridge connecting Elliot Street in Newton with Central Ave in Needham will begin the week of May 9 — resulting in occasional closures and/or lane closures as soon as next week and a complete closure for several months starting in mid-July.
The initial stage of the project will involve pre-construction activities such as the installation of erosion controls, tree trimming and removal and repairs to the underside of the arches, according to the contractor Aetna Bridge Construction Company..
In mid-June, there will be intermittent alternating lane closures until mid-June, which may result in the need for one-way traffic only. Traffic delays on weekdays are likely between the hours of 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. As work progresses, the contractor may opt for longer work days.
Then starting mid-July, the bridge will be totally closed to all vehicle and pedestrian traffic until early December.
Greg, do we have an update on what the MBTA bus 59 diversion might look like? There better be a plan…
There is definitely a plan, John. I don’t know when it begins, but I have seen it and believe it is in the Upper Falls Newsletter.
The NN Chamber of Commerce has a map of the bus route on its website. The Eliot Street bridge is also called Cooks Bridge if you are googling it!
There is no way this project should be allowed to begin until the Nahanton/Kenrick work is completed.
@Doug: This bridge needs to be repaired now. Fire trucks and other heavy vehicles are not presently allowed to travel over it now and there is always a risk that the state could close it to all vehicles at some point, which would result in even longer closures.
The best time for the bridge to be closed is during July and August in terms to usage. This timetable accounts for that.
I sure hope the Newton/Needham Chamber can advocate to get the Kenrick St. project done already.
It will impact business to have two projects going on simultaneously.
@Doug…ever since I attended an Upper Falls Area Council sponsored meeting informing the community about the state of the Cooks Bridge, I have said a little prayer just before crossing it! It is literally crumbling and we are running the gauntlet each time we cross over it!
I have repeatedly asked for the plans for notifying residents, workers and bus riders about the status of this plan to be posted. Where are the signs telling passengers on Bus Route 59 to go if they are unlucky to live or work between Elliot Street and Oak
Street on Chestnut Street. If I hadn’t happened to buy a paper at the 3 in 1 Superette at the foot of Cottage Street on Elliot Street, I wouldn’t have known about this. The job was supposed to start in early July when workers and residents might be gone on early summer vacation. Starting in early May before the closing of schools for the summer will just compound the difficulties. Is common sense and common courtesy in such short supply on both sides of the River. I suppose I shouldn’t complain . I was hiding out incognito on the floor of the City Council Chamber on Monday evening. I guess nobody from the bridge project was watching the live broadcast. They sure hadn’t been stuffing the Councilor packets for last Friday with information. The only time the project was mentioned Monday night was when the Chair of Public Facilities mentioned that the PF Committee would discuss the additional power to be installed to carry out the project.
I guess she hadn’t been told either. Nor was the Chair of Public Safety and Transportation apparently. I hope the Needham Selectmen were better informed than us.
I hope the ambulances were able to make it to the restaurants near the bridge when the news got out that the owners were facing drastic cuts in business, two months earlier than expected.
No body involved in the Upper Falls Greenway cleanup or other Newton Serves projects on Sunday needed to be informed about the speedup in the closing of the bridge project. No more than 90% of the Upper Falls workers would be impacted. The Friends of Hemlock Gorge members and Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce workers cleaning up the Reservation on Saturday had one whole day to pick it up on the Streets
The bad grammar above from this B.A. in English with an 800 on the English college entry exam is a reflection of my annoyance at this lack of proper communication with the public on a matter that directly and immediately reflects their day to day lives. I hope the quality of the engineering on the bridge will be much higher than the standard of public outreach.
If anyone wants to talk about the Bridge project tonight, the regular meeting of the Friends of Hemlock Gorge will be held tonight at 7;30 in the Emerson Community Center if there are no further infrastructure surprises. Let’s hope our Needham and Wellesley members can make itl.
We’re also going to discuss the project to treat the Hemlocks afllicted with woolley adelgids and hemlock stain. This project was initiated by Jason Lupien of Lupien Landscaping on Thurston Road in Upper Falls and would have been a partnership of the Massachusetts Aroborists Association and the Friends. Inspired by their example, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation plans to treat the trees that can be saved in the Reservation. Let’s hope that the Hemlocks and Cook’s Bridge will all be good for another 200 years.
City Councilor Brian Yates
President Friends of Hemlock Gorge
Despite my repeated efforts including filing of docket items, I have seen no detailed plans of where Bus Route 59 will go or where the current residents of the River neighborhoods should go to get to their jobs, Green Line, municipal libraries, Town Hall, City Hall, Commuter Rail in Needham and Newtonville .etc. I don’t believe there’s bid out for a contactor so we don’t have a mystery rollout of the bus infomration to look forward to like the rollout of the early start of Construction rollout this week.
My understanding is that the No 59 bus will continue to cross the bridge up until the July closure.
And then what?
Where will people near the River pick up the bus then?
Clearly we need details from the MBTA on the July-Dec. plans.
One would expect this information to be published with the summer bus schedules. The current schedules run until June 24.