Public Workings ... #1

by Glenn C. Koenig, webmaster at Town Wide Mall

A Bridge to ... Florida?

MAYNARD, MA - The Florida Road bridge has been closed for so long, it may be hard to remember when construction began.  Many residents have gotten used to the detour signs and have long since changed their driving habits to adjust to the closure.  But, eventually, the new bridge will be finished and we can resume crossing the river there again.

“We should expect the bridge to be completed some time this fall,” Public Works Director Justin DeMarco told me, when I talked with him recently.  Surprisingly, the town is not managing the rebuild.  When it comes to bridge construction, the town turns over ownership of the bridge to the state. The state (aka The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Highway Division, Municipal Small Bridge Program) hires the contractors and manages all construction.  When the job is completed, the state returns ownership of the new bridge to the town.  The entire project will take about two years of work, from start to finish.  “That’s actually pretty good,” DeMarco told me.  Bridge projects often took double that in the past.

For one thing, the work has to take place without harming the river.  That means that barriers have to be put into place to prevent construction debris or run-off from passing into the river.
Rivers are actually pretty fragile.  It doesn’t take much to damage the natural ecosystem.  If too much foreign matter is dumped into the river, it can easily become a putrefied mess.

Barriers, visible above in yellow, along the abutment, help protect the river from construction debris and polluted water run-off.

Up until the late 1960s, many people and industries often treated rivers as giant sewage canals and dumped all kinds of hazardous and foul effluent into them.  After the famous Cuyahoga River fire of 1969 ( https://www.nps.gov/articles/story-of-the-fire.htm ), attitudes towards rivers began to change.  There are now many federal and state laws and regulations in place to protect them.

Another reason for the construction time-frame is that bridges are not just roads and walkways, but also often carry other infrastructure, such as water mains, wastewater pipes, and occasionally storm drain culverts or even electric power or communication lines.

Bridges can last for 100 years if properly designed and built.  The Florida Road bridge that was removed was built in 1915, so it was clearly due for replacement.  Now the goal is to build this new bridge well enough to last for the next 100 years.

The Town’s Web site has more detailed information regarding the project:  https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/316/Florida-Road-Bridge-Project

The State Highway Department also has some information:  https://massdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=d42ae2ac2cb640ac992f763570ce10ed but that URL is a bit cumbersome, so I created a simpler one:
https://tinyurl.com/FlaRdBr
You have to zoom in to the Maynard downtown area to see the little dot at the bridge site, then click right on the dot to see the details.