How Safe are Medford’s Bridges?

 

The historic Cradock Bridge has held up well over time.  It’s slated for some improvements in 2014.

– Allison Goldsberry

Story updated  3:47PM August 7, 2007

Medford has twenty-nine bridges, three of which are on the Massachusetts Highway Department’s to-do list, the historic Cradock Bridge, which connects Medford Square to South Medford, the small bridge that carries Winthrop Street over the Mystic River by busy Route 16, and the Woods Memorial Draw Bridge, which crosses the Malden River and connects Medford with Everett.

The first two bridges have been found “structurally deficient” by Federal Highway Department criteria, and the draw bridge is considered “functionally obsolete.”

An $8,100,000 rehabilitation is planned for the 100-plus year-old Cradock Bridge, while the other bridge, constructed in 1926, will be completely replaced for a cost of $2,300,000.  Work on both bridges is planned for 2014.

According to the National Bridge Inventory, which compiles bridge data from the Federal Highway Department, the Cradock Bridge scored a 64.1% sufficiency rating while the Winthrop Street bridge scored 66.1%.

The draw bridge, technically in Everett, scored a 48.5% sufficiency rating.  The Mass Highway Department is currently planning to replace this bridge in the winter of 2010, at an estimated cost of $20 million.

Ten other bridges in Medford have been found “functionally obsolete,” even ones with fairly high ratings, such as this I-93 bridge near the Route 28 juncture.

One other bridge has also been found structurally deficient, a Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) bridge that carries Route 16 over the Mystic River.  An estimated 40,000 cars travel this bridge each day.

The lowest scoring bridge in Medford, at 58.2%, was the bridge that crosses the railroad tracks at Wellington Station.  Also owned by the DCR, the bridge was first built in 1903 and was reconstructed in 1958.  More than 100,000 cars are estimated to use this bridge each day.

None of these bridges have any immediate work planned.