New Bridge Is New Milestone for Wellesley

Greetings from Wellesley! Wish you were here. We spent the long holiday weekend watching a bridge being built in the summer sunshine.

While most of our town was emptied of residents for the weekend, road construction crews were busy. The people who run the state's division of transportation said that it could be done: construction crews would replace an aging bridge over Route 9 in Wellesley, using pre-fabricated bridge construction techniques, in a weekend. One weekend! In what the state department describes as an "incredible feat," our town got a new bridge in just about 72 hours, without a glitch.

After watching the Route 9/Route 16 bridge replacement project drag on for years for its eventual completion, like many other residents, I was a skeptic. I didn't think it was possible to remove an aging bridge and replace it with a new one in just under three days. But when I went I arrived there on the morning of July 4, I saw a sight to behold: a brand new bridge in the place of the old overpass that was built over Route 9 back to 1936. State Rep. Alice Peisch and the town's Selectmen backed the project, knowing it would be a major improvement over the previous ways of replacing aging infrastructure. 

Construction workers built the new bridge on a temporary staging site made up of steel beams about 100 feet away from Cedar Street. They demolished the old bridge Friday night, and slid the new slab into place on Sunday. It is a marvel.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), more "miracle bridges" are on the way for our area, though not in Wellesley. By the end of summer, 14 similar overpasses will be demolished along Interstate 93. Pre-cast bridges will be set into place by cranes, while most drivers are at home sleeping. You may find yourself driving underneath a new bridge, without realizing it.

The Accelerated Bridge Program, according to MassDOT, is an investment in reducing the number of structurally deficient bridges in Massachusetts. It has not been done before in our state. The program has already reduced the number of structurally deficient bridges from 543 to 458, a cut of more than 15 percent.  Twenty-eight more projects are scheduled to begin this year.

Neighbors and regular users of the Cedar Street Bridge, who live or work in the area say they are amazed at the result. Fairly recent advancements in bridge building technology are the reason for the bridge-in-a-snap project. What could have taken an estimated two years, took a little more than two days to complete.

The governor was impressed when he toured the site in May, when the project was in its infancy. Transportation officials say this type of bridge replacement work isn't just quicker, it's also safer for the crews and for the driving public.  So, when you get the chance, be sure to check out the new Cedar Street Bridge over Route 9. When you see it, you might start to think that anything is possible, when the right talented people put their heads together. The folks at MassDOT also created a postcard for Wellesley, so vacationing residents could see their efforts.  If you have never seen a bridge replaced before, you may want to take a look at the flickr page they’ve set up.