Smoke pic by Benjamin Day.
The Massachusetts Avenue Bridge and the connecting Storrow Drive were shut this morning when a homeless encampment under the Boston side of the bridge caught fire, sending smoke billowing into the air and bringing firefighters racing from both Boston and Cambridge.
State Police report no injuries but that the bridge and the road will remain shut until after state engineers can inspect them to ensure no damage.
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Comments
Only kind of woosh
By ElizaLeila
Mon, 01/14/2019 - 9:11am
Massport is a quasi government agency. It's not using your tax dollars. At all.
I think you might have chosen a different agency to make a better point, is all.
Ownership of the real estate?
By Bob Leponge
Mon, 01/14/2019 - 10:54am
Is not the underlying real estate owned by the public?
Maybe?
By ElizaLeila
Mon, 01/14/2019 - 11:21am
It's state owned, so, yes?
maybe I'm wrong. wouldn't be the first time. ;-)
Not controversial
By Kaz
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 1:40pm
Unless you don't want yellow corners on your intersections. Then it gets all sorts of controversial as to what "we" are allowed to do with our public streets.
Only sort of.
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 3:17pm
Whether or not we get yellow plastic on our street corners is determined by the government we have democratically elected. Said government is also required to follow the law. There is a legal process to determine whether the government is acting within the rights we have delegated to it or not. Legal and political processes are places in which competing and conflicting interests are represented. Not everyone gets their way. On the matter of the yellow plastic street corner things, the law allowed Walsh to bypass the normal operation of the political and legal process and get his way by declaring a public safety emergency, just as Trump is looking to do with his Mexico wall.
If, in fact...
By lbb
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 10:07am
...it is private property.
I believe this is also something of a fuzzy area - for example, as when a private business makes use of the public sidewalk, which quite a few do in Boston.
It is illegal
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 11:28am
For a private business to display merchandise, signboards, etc. on public sidewalks is illegal. Plenty of businesses do it, and the city is lax about enforcing it, but the legality is not fuzzy.
Apologies!
By GrooPunk
Thu, 01/10/2019 - 3:07pm
Were you wanting use of the underside of the Mass Ave bridge, but were prevented from people simply trying to seek out shelter?
No, but...
By Bob Leponge
Thu, 01/10/2019 - 4:40pm
No, but I was wanting use of the Mass Ave Bridge and Storrow Drive for purposes of transport, and was prevented from doing so by people setting the place on fire.
oh wow good point
By berkleealum
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 7:26am
your desire to cross a public bridge is much like your desire to use my private bike!
wooosh!
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 11:31am
No, my desire to cross a public bridge is like my desire to use my private bike. If someone else's illegal activity damages either the bridge or the bike, then I have a problem with it.
being
By berkleealum
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 12:30pm
homeless is illegal?
EDIT: i'm going to ward off your inevitable obtuseness by pointing out that nothing in the OP or MSP tweet suggests any illegal activity. so you must be referring to the legality of homeless encampment itself, unless you're privy to info none of us has.
Setting the Mass Ave overpass
By anon
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 12:37pm
Setting the Mass Ave overpass on fire is illegal.
Who ever said that being homeless was illegal?
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 3:39pm
Just to clarify where I'm coming from, I believe that we have a moral obligation to provide warm, dry, safe housing to anybody who needs it who cannot provide it for him or her self.
That is completely orthogonal, of course, to the question of whether the encampment under the Mass. Ave Bridge is legal.
If the property in question is controlled by the DCR, which, it being adjacent to Storrow Drive, seems a good bet, then here are the applicable regs that would, on first inspection, appear to make camping there illegal.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/xn/30...
So.....
By Robert
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 4:07pm
If we have a moral obligation to provide this warm dry safe housing as you believe we do, but aren't.
What are folks supposed to do?
What are folks supposed to do?
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 4:57pm
By "folks" do you mean you and me? Vote for representatives who promise to meet this obligation. Lobby existing representatives to do something. Donate time and money to private charities that help.
If you mean homeless folks, they're in an impossible situation. If they had our (the public's) support? Sit in in the lobby of the state house and say "we're not going away until the state does something to meet its obligation?
Thanks for clarifying
By Robert
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 5:10pm
Sorry yeah I wasn't clear by folks. I did mean the homeless folks in the impossible situation. I hear you on the homeless going to the statehouse and occupying it until action is taken. I'm sure that would work. It's just feels less effective when the statehouse is closed and there are no shelter beds available, I guess I'm thinking how they solve the homeless situation for the night? Then I suppose that the moral obligation you were talking about feels less about providing actual shelter for those that need it and more about how to lobby effectively.
next
By anon
Thu, 01/10/2019 - 1:24pm
https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/People-Spott...
A bridge with many names
By PKM
Thu, 01/10/2019 - 2:28pm
FYI
It’s official name is the Harvard Bridge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Bridge
As my father taught me
By Just A Kid from...
Thu, 01/10/2019 - 10:03pm
"There but for the grace of God go I".
For certain
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 01/11/2019 - 11:52am
One thing I have learned with increasing age is that I am not a better person than any of the people living under that bridge.
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