Christian MilNeil | StreetsBlog Mass | September 16, 2021
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2021/09/16/photos-dcrs-pedestrian-bridges-are-crumbling-away/
Five days have passed since BU professor David Jones died on a dangerous staircase next to the JFK/UMass T station, and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), which controls the streets above and below the stairway, is still not responding to reporters’ inquiries about the staircase, its history of safety inspections, or why it’s been missing several of its steps for over a year.
On Wednesday evening, while still awaiting answers from the agency’s officials, StreetsblogMASS surveyed several other pedestrian bridges over other DCR roadways and found extensive deferred maintenance issues on many of those structures as well.
Along the Charles River, a handful of footbridges over Storrow Drive, Memorial Drive, and Soldiers Field Road connect densely-populated city neighborhoods with the popular riverfront parks along the Charles.
A few of them – namely the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge, which was renovated earlier this summer, and the Frances Appleton Footbridge, built in 2018 – are in excellent condition.
But many of the DCR’s other footbridges bear extensive signs of their age.
DCR would did not respond to Streetsblog’s inquiry about how old these bridges are, but historic photographs suggest that many of them date to the 1950s, when Storrow Drive was originally built.
Overpasses at Dartmouth Street, Fairfield Street, and Sibler Way all employ similar designs, and exhibit similar signs of deterioration.
To read the full story and see photos, please click here.