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City vows to replace bridge to Long Island, but work could take five years
By adamg on Thu, 10/09/2014 - 7:13pm
The mayor's office says it remains committed to rebuilding the Long Island bridge that was shut last night, but that even under the best circumstances, design, environmental analysis and actual construction could take five years and cost $80 million.
Even before the bridge was shut as unsafe, the city had been preparing bid documents for $9 million in design work, half of which would be paid for by the state.
In the worst case, the city of Quincy, which has long expressed reservations at Boston's nerve in routing traffic through its streets, could tie up the project for years.
The mayor's office says the more than 400 people who normally sleep in a shelter on Long island will be housed in alternate facilities on the mainland, including the South End Fitness Center - which took in 80 people last night and which is being fitted with enough beds for 250 people a night.
For the individuals in recovery programs on the Island, many have been placed in alternative treatment programs. The staff at BPHC PAATHS program is working on placements within the substance abuse system of care. The goal is to place all men and women in long-term recovery programs within 48 hours.
The City has worked closely with all area homeless shelter providers to identify excess beds for additional clients as needed. Clients are in the process of being placed at these partner organizations, agencies and nonprofits.
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Comments
I agree with Quincy!
Hey, This is a crazy waste money. Build a dock and have the homeless and Fire Department employees take the water shuttle to and from. This a lot cheaper in the long run. The KIds Camp out there is a gem and the water shuttle is very smart transport when it's being used.
Yo Joey! Your comment shows your ignorance
The fire department and the police department use Moon Island, not Long Island. Moon Island is connected by a causeway to Squantum. There is no bridge to Moon Island, but one must go over Moon Island to get to the Long Island bridge. Boston has been using Moon Island for municipal uses since Squantum was lightly occupied in the 1880's.
The 276 bus uses the bridge to ferry our less fortunate out to Long Island. If the bridge goes away Long Island would have to have a dock built there, plus graded approaches up to the hospital buildings since you know that most of Long Island is 20 to 40 foot cliffs on the Boston facing side, right? I'm sure you have also plan to replace all the utilities that service the island by means of the bridge, right?
Now, where are the homeless going to congregate prior to boarding this Ferry? Rowes Wharf? Long Wharf? Kelly's Landing? Good luck with that. Our business class and tourist class cannot wait for the Rotunda at Rowes Wharf to smell like urine and Wild Irish Rose.
What About Duck Boats? Could They Make The Crossing?
How about the Boston Fire
How about the Boston Fire Dept Fire House that is located on LONG ISLAND!!
Yo John
Ignorance is not knowing the Fire Station is on Long Island and a dock is already available.
Nice Dock
Tell me how that will support a 400 person ferry? Tell me who will pay for the ferry? How much to operate the ferry each year? Tell me what happens when someone stabs someone else at 3:00 AM and they need to get them off of the island to BMC? Call a water taxi?
The dock
at the end of Long Island, part of the "Camp Menino" complex, is huge. It's similar in size to, or even larger than, the docks at harbor islands like Spectacle, Georges, Peddocks that current island ferries use.
Build em a tunnel. Call it
Build em a tunnel. Call it Long Island Big Dig. Good jobs and wages for Union folk.
Dear Quincy
FU. Many of your born and bred have ended up in that shelter or in the rehab. Are you Wellesley now?
Wellesely? NO!
Chain Town, Maybe!
Quincy has plenty of services
Quincy has plenty of services. Father Bills, Anchor Inn, Bay State Community Services, the new detox center in the Cerebral Palsy building in Wollaston (which was a done deal without neighborhood input). Quincy needs these services.
Excuse me?
Really? Do you have statistics or other evidence to back up that claim?
Mrs Howell
My point was astutely made by a previous poster. "Quincy has plenty of services. Father Bills, Anchor Inn, Bay State Community Services, the new detox center in the Cerebral Palsy building in Wollaston (which was a done deal without neighborhood input). Quincy needs these services."
Quincy has services but for whom?
Does Quincy have services for its own people or is it overflow from neighboring areas?
As for Long Island, I highly doubt most of the population out there are Quincy natives.
However, if you have survey results or statistics, I will gladly put my attitude in check.
Father Bills takes overflow
Father Bills takes overflow from Boston. Definitely. There is a heroin problem in Quincy, (all over the area and even in Wellesley.) The detox centers are used by residents and people from the area.
Do you have any idea what it
Do you have any idea what it costs to run a ferry? There's a reason why ferries have been replaced by bridges whenever possible in this country.
Quincy would tie things up?
This is a city that got Music Manned by a development company which blasted through its downtown like Curtis LeMay was at the controls.
Quincy is a city who just had their City Hall catch on fire by junkies stealing copper. City Hall. Think about that.
QuIncy has a political faction war between Phelan and Koch that resembles two rats fighting in a sock. No matter who is on top, they are both rats.
I would love to watch Providence-Sur-Neponset manage some kind of opposition to a bridge replacement project involving workers from Marty Walsh's and Steve Lynch's main political base.
Get your popcorn ready.
Troll away John
I'll take city hall fires over 330+ unsolved murders any day. Not to mention BPD's overzealousness when it comes to stopping minorities (looks like that's done a lot of good).
Not to mention the developer you spoke of lost millions, whole Quincy didn't spend a dime of its own money.
Keep trolling though.
Just take it down
So I can sail my damn sailboat thru the channel. Its a pain having to go around Long Island to get over to Peddocks Island.
Will you take a few passengers along for the ride?
Like the guys who were hanging out in Dewey tonight, getting ready to sleep over?
(/joking because they really should just get a bigger boat!)
As long as they have beer.
Im game.
But I think they frown upon that at the shelter.
Where are the 400 homeless
residents of Long Island going now? I feel very sorry for them. Many had been at the Long Island shelter for years. For them it was their home. Now where do they go? Does anyone care?
On the streets for now
Or so it seems. Dewey Square looked like it was going to have a sleepover, and I don't think Boy Scouts were involved.
well thank goodness
the mayor who ran on the drug and alcohol recovery program platform is going to fix this problem, IN 5 YEARS! I know it is Menino's fault that we got to this point, but why didn't incoming Mayor Walsh have this on his radar and address relocating folks before this point? You wait to move 400 homeless people the day the bridge is condemned? Why was this not planned for earlier? The bridge's structural issues are NOT NEW!
http://www.sparechangenews.net/news/infrastructure-inequality-battle-fix...
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/quincy/2013/11/long_island_bridge_re...
http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Marty_Walsh_Drugs.htm
Yet here we are. *slow clap* for the Mayor in honoring his political run priorities
It was Romney!
"Money for the bridge overhaul was included in a state bond issue during the administration of Acting Governor Jane Swift. Governor Mitt Romney's administration put a hold on the project in 2003 because of the state budget crisis during that period" Boston Globe 07-08-2007 . http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/08/senator_wants_span_...
Actual it is the Quincy
Actual it is the Quincy Conservation Commission holding it up...
Since Quincy is the only land access, it has to approve all repairs made to the bridge. Ayers claimed crumbling concrete and falling debris from under the bridge were harming shellfish and polluting Quincy’s beaches. He submitted a letter to the Quincy Conservation Commission’s November 5 meeting asking them to deny the repairs. The commission did not deny the repairs, but it did not immediately approve them, either. Instead, it voted to delay repairs until a third-party consultant could assess the pollution risks.
Then-mayor Thomas Menino stressed the importance of fixing the bridge in a letter to Quincy mayor Thomas Koch. He pointed out that many people who use the services housed on Long Island are Quincy residents He also wrote that “[e]very dollar dedicated to the proposed maintenance project comes from the City of Boston’s Capital Budget” – in other words, that none of the money for bridge repairs comes from Commonwealth funds. The same is true of repairs made in 2008 and 2011. Despite Menino’s request, the commission did not approve the proposed repairs for months. One commission member, in particular, played a direct role in delaying them.
After the inital meeting, commission member John Brennion went out to inspect the bridge, which he says is standard practice. “When we get a list of building requests, we send someone to inspect … I went out to the bridge and I talked to one of the officers, showed them the agenda and my ID. He refused me access and cost the repairs another month.”
Brennion is not shy about his role. “They lost time because of me,” he explains. According to Brennion, the delay is standard practice. When the commission is not able to inspect a project, they delay it for a month. Brennion does not blame the officer for denying him access. “He was just following orders,” Brennion says. However, he thinks denying a Quincy resident and state-approved inspector access to the bridge is a sign of Boston’s “arrogance.”
“Whether you think it’s Boston property or not, it is in the jurisdiction of Quincy,” he says. “I wasn’t gonna’ give in [to Boston], and it cost them time.” Brennion adds that he is not opposed to fixing the bridge – though he does wonder if island clients could use the same ferries and ports used by the Camp Harbor View kids.
http://www.sparechangenews.net/news/infrastructure-inequality-battle-fix...
Yep blame Mittens for a CITY
Yep blame Mittens for a CITY OWNED BRIDGE which has been falling apart for the better part of 50 YEARS
He sold that
bridge while at Bain.
well thank goodness
double post....
miss mouthy
You really are a piece of work with your commentary.... At any given time you'll blurt out foolishness particularly things/subjects (You know nothing about... i.e.. makes no sense what so ever) I see it post after post...,smh
Content free ad-hominem comment
Content free response.
Occupy Dewey Square!
It's been done before.
More than just the shelter
Besides the homeless shelter, there are a number of social services with stranded clients, including the detox, halfway houses, and transitional housing programs. Even if you have no sympathy for the homeless shelter denizens, you should care about the people in these other programs who have been staying clean and trying to better themselves. I was in one of those programs 10 years ago. Despite a tough population of homeless addicts & alcoholics, they had a surprisingly high success rate. I met some good people there. There is life on that Island beyond the shelter.
@ JohnCostello. Ignorance? Pot or Kettle?
@JohnCostello, you write of ignorance, apparently bereft of the knowledge that Engine-54 and Ladder-31 are assigned to Long Island in Boston, Suffolk County. The Boston Fire Academy is located on Moon Island in Quincy, Norfolk County. Two miles away, a county apart and nothing to do with each other, except for the same uniforms and same employer.
E-54 rarely leaves Long Island and L-31 never does, but they've had their spectacular fires, including the Our Lady of Hope Rectory, the massive Long Island Tobin Building fire and less serious ones at the abandoned FBI Safe House. Also, numerous medicals for the shelter dwellers and those in early recovery. L-31 is the city's oldest and lightest Boston ladder, purchased used from the Town of Whitman because Menino knew years ago that a modern, full-fledged ladder might fall through the bridge into the Atlantic. Rather than fix the bridge then, he bought a truck more suitable for the Walton's or Andy Griffith. Now we are left to pick up the pieces (of rotted steel).
@ gina, not to split hairs, but isn't it a contradiction or oxymoron to take away a home from the homeless?
I was wrong ignorant about the station I'll admit that.
Those guys have a better gig than the hard working first responders at the Fire Boat, right?
Nevertheless, if there is no bridge, how do you fuel and repair the fire engine? Where is the fuel dock for the island? What if these guys need back up? How many people could get roasted because another engine can't make it to the island?
Who pays to operate the ferry? Remember the existing ferries are at capacity for paying customers at the same time the 276ers are in motion. This means the need for a new ferry or ferries winch will be non revenue generating unlike the $17 I pay to get back and forth to Hingham.
Fix / replace the bridge. It means good jobs for a few and maybe then the rest of us can use the island and not just the homeless and Jack Connor's friends.
I think the main issue is.....
Could 81 million dollars be better spend on a nice newer facility and program for all those who use Long Island.
I say yes. 81 million for a bridge to already subpar facilities does not make financial sense. Those islands should be used for recreation, not for public safety/DMH facilities.
Indeed, ! I think I remember
Indeed, ! I think I remember a waybill for the hospital, going over that bridge , maybe 1970 , and it was hairy back then. I have been under that bridge as well, and the steel is not to impressive, size wise ect. Time to let that island be an island , tear down the steel and piers and move on. Too bad they didn't think ahead before they did whatever they did at the Boston State Hospital on Morton Street. That facility could have been gradually transitioned so as to avoid the big splash controversy. The Long Island facility was conveniently tucked away out of sight , out of city. The money should not be spent on this bridge for the clandestine programs, it should be spent on the mission itself. Time for it to be out of sight is past. But , alas , it is a political hot potato , who knows how it will get mashed up now. But it is time for that island to be an island, water conveyance for these programs is unrealistic and hazardous , law suits just waiting to happen. I don't even know how they supply that place with goods to start with.
Costello don't
apologize to a wing nut. He's probably looking out the window at that firehouse right now. Bitching about lazy freeloaders all while on our dime.
Re: bulgingbuick
Not quite bulgingbuick, I never carried the fire badge but your "wing nut" name calling coupled with the disparaging of BFD E-54's crew says it all. My familiarity with Long Island comes from years of volunteering at the shelter and attending the Catholic Mass at the now closed Our Lady of Hope chapel. By coincidence, it was Boston Engine 54 first on the scene when Our Lady of Hope rectory suffered a massive fire, bravely battling it alone until Quincy's Squantum Engine-7 and BFD trucks from Dorchester arrived much later. Not to mention the constant, risky medical calls generated by some of the less healthy homeless, carrying any number of contagious diseases, information not readily available to the firefighters who were often the sole means of treatment for 30 minutes or more until EMS arrived from the mainland. A little more than looking out the window. Stay classy bb.
Damn...
Scores of folks have now had yet another wrench thrown into their lives.
The Routes 274/275/276 now effectively cease to exist. Never thought it would end like this.
Let's hope the South End Fitness Center has enough charity in its heart to last five years.
At least it didn't end with a
At least it didn't end with a bus going into the water.
The Chickens have finally come home to roost
Despite all the service offered on the island, the chickens have come home to roost. Thankfully no one has been forced to do the dog paddle (my favorite) back to shore after the bridge collapsed.
Why isn't the island open to
Why isn't the island open to the public?
We pay for it, we should be able to use it.
This could be an awesome green space for the City - forget Spectacle Island, how about a sail to Long Island get off the boat and picnic, explore the military ruins.
Any plans to fix the bridge (and yes the bridge should be fixed) should be done with a plan for public use of this island.
Because of the
Bridge.
Menino sign
Can we get a sign put up which states 'this failure brought to you by Thomas Menino, former Mayor'? I know he likes having his name on signs.
What happens to the camp?
Camp Harbor View is a highly desired and utilized summer resource for Boston families in high-risk neighborhoods. It's the best deal in town! All day camp activities for $5.00 for a 4 week session, meals and transportation provided.
Now that i think about it, I can't believe they were bussing kids across that bridge!
Ferry
It looks like recreational ilk take ferries and boats
http://www.campharborview5k.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.details&Articl...
The rebuild of the pier north of the parade grounds about 15 years ago was extensive. I only have the memory of my hard copy article on it (and a Google view to confirm most of what I remember) but there was dredging to accommodate some larger boats.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3292801,-70.9600935,194m/data=!3m1!1e3
The hospital pier south of the parade grounds looks to be a stub of what it was. The safe house is still standing.
Do we really need
an environmental analysis, public hearings, and the like to replace an existing bridge? I say - not at all!
And if
wastingspending the time and money to study the potential negative environmental impacts associated with replacing an existing bridge (bwah ha ha ha ha ha) is so critical, then let the environmentalists take that time and spend THEIR money doing these pointless and wasteful studies. And it should be a requirement that THEY prove their claims beyond a reasonable doubt, instead of forcing the DOT to disprove claims that are often nebelous at best.MnDOT replaced a major interstate highway bridge (I-35W) that collapsed in 2007 in just about a year. We should be able to do the same or better - with no excuses whatsoever.
Not so simple
New MassDOT policies would require a replacement bridge to have adequate pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, thus widening it and making it more expensive!
As it should
If Long Island is to be made accessible by bridge again, it should be made fully open to the public at all times, 27/7/365. That means having adequate sidewalks and shoulders or bike lanes.
Making the island open to the public doesn't mean you have to uproot or remove any of the social services or shelters that are there now.
Make Long Island a State Park!!
I think it is great that Boston is helping over 400 people each night But Why on Earth would you drive them to Another City? Why not put the 80 million dollars and Expand the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital -170 Morton Street, Boston, MA ? ? Boston - isn’t that were all the people are from? ? They are Not from Quincy and or Squantum?
Why is there No Public Entry?? - What is that?? Security Guards – Really Why? We used to be able to ride our bikes over to Long Island in the 70’sand early 80’s!! It is such an incredible resource for All to USE?
Note: The mission of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is to make the Boston Harbor Islands system—with opportunities for education, recreation, and restful solitude within an urban area—an integral part of the life of the region and the nation by protecting the islands and their associated resources while at the same time improving public knowledge and access!
Let the Island be a Resource For All!! Not a Fortress for a Homeless Shelter!!
Long Island is not Quincy, it
Long Island is not Quincy, it's Boston. 02122 zip code.
True, but ...
You can't get to it by land without going through Quincy.
I hope all those sex offenders re-register
Many sex offenders use Long [edit] Island as their address currently, along with new offenders released from prison and Bridgewater. I hope they register new addresses with police, as required, not that many do, including those who had already left the shelter.
They're all
moving in with "Marty" Marzilli in Arlington.
Deer Island?
People live there? If so, where? Most of the (former) island is a sewage treatment plant and the rest is a harborside park and walkway.
fixed
Thanks for pointing out the Freudian (?) slip.