Report on April 9, 2013 Longfellow Bridge meeting.

I attended the Longfellow Bridge meeting last night. There was good attendance from cycling and public transportation advocates and others concerned about the project — mostly, neighbors — although there were complaints about lack of publicity of the meeting — people who were on e-mail lists but not e-mailed. This was almost entirely a meeting about construction phasing and the design of the bridge itself. The only presenters were three from the design contractor, and one from MassDOT, who didn’t do much of the talking. There was a representative of the City of Boston in the audience, who spoke, but there was nobody from the MBTA, the DCR or the City of Cambridge. People in the audience raised a lot of questions about connections at the end of the bridge — which were not covered in the presentation but mostly could be addressed later on; about diversions (detours) when the bridge would be one-way during construction; about reducing noise from the Red Line trains; and about bus service which would replace the Red line trains during construction on weekends. One thing learned at the meeting: two-way on-road bicycle access will be maintained throughout the time of construction, except on some weekends (? — not sure, someone has claimed that it will never be restricted.)  A sidewalk will be open at all times. Construction is to start this summer and finish in 2016. MassDOT documentation is at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/charlesriverbridges/LongfellowBridge.aspx but the documentation from last night’s meeting is not yet online, at least not here. Boston Globe story describing the project: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/02/28/longfellow-bridge-construction-begin-this-summer-with-major-traffic-diversions/gPqPYiWt2KmmWpxB5vmOaM/story.html