Hyde Park’s River Street Bridge Reopens After Two-Year Closure
Drivers in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood are rejoicing at the reopening of the River Street Bridge during the week of Dec. 23. The bridge had been closed for more than two years for repairs.
Boston City Councilor Enrique Pepén, who represents District 5, told NBC10 News Boston that Amtrak’s electrical connections to its Acela service, which run underneath the bridge, added to the project’s delay. Boston’s MBTA lines are also underneath the bridge, located west of Cleary Square in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
Pepén said he and Massachusetts State Rep. Rob Consalvo worked with several individuals to speed up the bridge’s repairs following a meeting with Amtrak officials.
“That’s when the governor decided to appoint a project manager to the case, and that’s when we started to see a lot of the progression,” said Pepén.
Although the reopening marks a significant step forward for the aging River Street bridge, improvements to the bridge remain to come. City, community, and state leaders are investigating ways to completely replace the bridge span at some point in the future.
According to information from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), the River Street Bridge, a wrought-iron truss bridge, dates to 1883 and has been repaired several times during the last 100 years of its life.
In May 2022, during a regular inspection of the bridge, MassDOT engineers discovered significant structural deteroriation to the bridge, resulting in concerns about vehicle carrying capacity. At that point, MassDOT closed the bridge to vehicle traffic and installed detours around it.
In its plan to build a new bridge, MassDOT will be moving the gas, electric, water, and telephone lines that are currently supported by the bridge to their own utility bridge. Amtrak will also move its electrified wires to their own support structures.
