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Rourke Bridge construction to end in October

A permanent solution is upwards of a decade away


Al Gentile

Connector Editor

Recent construction on the Rourke Bridge in Lowell has redirected large amounts of traffic onto the University Bridge route, heavily affecting both native North Campus and inter-Campus travel. Students and Lowell citizens at large are asking themselves, “What’s going on? When will this be over?”

Many students have been affected by the recent work on the bridge. Tyler Chase, a psychology major, claimed it took him nearly 45 minutes to travel between South and North Campus.

Sarah Steinburg, a nursing major, said she has to leave earlier because of the traffic.

For Ric Johnson, a psychology major, the new construction is a mixed bag. “Sometimes you can catch it at a good time and it won’t be that bad, but around rush hour it’s god-awful.”

The Rourke Bridge, as it stands now, was built in 1983 as a temporary solution to connecting the towns of Chelmsford, Tyngsboro, Dracut and Lowell and to establish an environment more conducive to development along Pawtucket Boulevard. According to Kevin Coughlin, deputy director of the Department of Planning and Development, this temporary bridge was meant to last for only eight to ten years while work on a permanent bridge was to be planned.

One of the key problems, Coughlin said, is that there are simply more cars on the road than there were at the time of the building of the temporary bridge. “You have a lot more vehicles, number one, and you’ve got roadways that were not meant to carry that amount of traffic,” Coughlin said.

Justin Howard of the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments said that the construction taking place now is part of a continuing maintenance effort that began in 2007 at a cost of approximately $14 million dollars. Depending on traffic patterns throughout the day, either side of the bridge would close in an effort to replace the panels that lay on top of the bridge, and this stage of maintenance is to end by the end of October.

The Corridor and Feasibility Study, a $500,000 effort funded by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and overseen by the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments, was executed by municipal officials and consultants from many fields of expertise to determine the best course of action for a permanent solution. The study, according to Howard, makes “preliminary” design recommendations as well as outlines a wide range of concerns with new construction plans which include environmental, economic and safety considerations.

“Out of the study came three different alternatives,” Howard said.

The first alternative, according to Howard, was to erect a bridge in the exact spot the temporary bridge is currently located, costing an estimated $54 million dollars. A second alternative was to skew the bridge slightly to the west, beginning where J.J. Boomer’s parking lot is, at a cost of around $60 million dollars.

The third alternative is to skew the bridge even further west, at a cost of approximately $67.8 million dollars.

“All of the alternatives,” Howard said, “include widening it to four lanes, providing areas for bike lanes on either side and sidewalks on either side.”

During the design and environmental permitting process, which will take approximately five years, “one of the alternatives will stand out,” Howard said.

Once one of the alternatives has been decided on, Howard said actual construction will take around three years.

Changing priorities, according to Coughlin, has kept the temporary bridge in place far longer than expected. New municipal and regional administrations, emerging issues and different budget proposals have pushed the construction back to where we are today.

Coughlin offered hope that the recent work with the feasibility study is part of a full consensus on the issue of getting the bridge completed. “We’re concerned about how [businesses] get their workforce here in the morning and what makes Lowell an attractive place to do business,” Coughlin said.

For more information on the Rourke Bridge construction effort, The Corridor and Feasibility Study official document is available to the public at RourkeBridgeStudy.com.

If you have questions or comments on this story, email the author at alexander_gentile@student.uml.edu.

Staff Writer Michael Caizzi contributed the student perspectives on this report.