The Tobin Bridge rehabilitation project will begin next month, and state transportation officials will come to Chelsea to explain the impacts on March 27.
A map of the area of focus for the Tobin Bridge maintenance project that will begin next month. A public meeting on the project has been scheduled for March 27 in Chelsea.
The Tobin Bridge project is separate and distinct from the Chelsea Viaducts project, which has a different timeline and a different area of focus. The Viaduct project will start later next year.
This week, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is reminding members of the public that work-related activities and traffic impacts as part of the Tobin Bridge Rehabilitation Project are currently expected to begin in April after MassDOT conducts an outreach process to inform the public of project impacts.
A public meeting on this project is currently scheduled for Tuesday, March 27, at the Chelsea Senior Center, 10 Riley Way.
To allow crews and contractors to safely and effectively conduct operations, one lane on the lower deck (Route 1 northbound) will be closed at all times in this area beginning in April and lasting through the end of the 2018 construction season. Overnight off-peak lane closures will be implemented on the upper deck (Route 1 southbound) as operations require during this time.
The Everett Avenue on-ramp will be also closed at all times for all vehicles beginning in late April, and this closure will last approximately one month. Following the re-opening of the Everett Avenue on-ramp, the Beacon Street off-ramp will then be closed for approximately two months. The Fourth Street off-ramp will also be closed for a one-month period, and this closure is currently expected to occur in November 2018. No more than one ramp will be closed at any given time throughout the duration of the project.
This $41.6 million maintenance project involves repairing a section of the deck of the Tobin Bridge which carries traffic between the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston and Chelsea. Work is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2020 with lane closures and traffic impacts occurring during each of the 2018, 2019, and 2020 construction seasons.
Work will include steel repairs to the upper and lower decks, concrete deck work on the lower deck, followed by waterproofing, resurfacing, and installing pavement markings. Operations will also consist of utility installation, installing curbing, paving, constructing a new parking lot under the bridge between Williams Street and Third Street.
The Tobin Memorial Bridge was erected in 1948-1949 and opened to traffic in 1950. It carries Route 1 with three travel lanes northbound on its lower level and three lanes southbound on the upper level. The 36-foot-wide roadway is bounded on both sides by safety walks (2’7″ wide) with steel-pipe railings on each side.
The main structure over the Mystic River is a three-span, cantilevered truss 1,525′ in length. Its center span is 800′ and the maximum truss height is 115′. It provides a navigable waterway opening 700′ wide by 135′ high. A smaller, simply supported warren truss spans the Little Mystic. It reaches a maximum truss height of 65′ and is 439′ long. Its navigable waterway opening measures 340′ wide by 100′ high.