'The worst kept secret:' Unforeseen issues delay Longfellow Bridge work

[unhappycamper]

http://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20150805/NEWS/150808612/0/breaking_ajax



Construction crews work on the "salt and pepper" towers on Longfellow Bridge in 2014. MassDOT developed a plan to dismantle, clean, restore and re-set the granite stones.

'The worst kept secret:' Unforeseen issues delay Longfellow Bridge work
By Haiyun Jiang and Colin A. Young
Posted Aug. 5, 2015 at 8:36 AM
Updated Aug 5, 2015 at 8:38 AM

CAMBRIDGE

Calling it "kind of the worst kept secret," the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's highway administrator told his board of directors on Tuesday that restoration of the Longfellow Bridge has fallen behind schedule and is now expected to last until at least November 2018.

The setback means people who rely on the historic bridge to commute between Boston and Cambridge may be in for about three more years of delays, detours and headaches.

"You don't have to be a construction expert to realize that this thing was going a lot slower than people had anticipated," Thomas Tinlin, MassDOT's acting highway administrator, said.

Originally scheduled for completion in November 2016 with an initial $304 million budget, the bridge has been under construction since 2013. For the sake of preserving its historic nature, the construction team has had to use old techniques for some parts of the job, which has slowed the process.

[Agschmid]

1. I mean at this point I guess I'm used to the traffic by the science museum...

Ugh.