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Contractor to begin tearing down Long Island bridge today
By adamg on Mon, 01/05/2015 - 8:38am
Walsh Construction Co. of Chicago today begins a four-month contract to tear down the condemned Long Island bridge. The city shut the bridge in October as unsafe.
Even as Walsh starts its $20.5-million demo, the city has still to figure out how to replace the homeless and substance-abuse treatment programs that were based on the island. The Boston Public Health Commission holds a hearing in Mattapan tomorrow to discuss its plans to use its Mattapan campus to replace some of the beds lost with the bridge closure.
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Comments
Shovel Ready Jobs with Stimulus
Does anyone know which roads and bridges were fixed with the stimulus money from 2008-2009 and why this bridge make the cut?
I've got nothing but my tin foil hat so...
Take this for what it is;
I've got a gut feeling that before it's all said and done they'll find another place for the homeless and the island gets repurposed (developed).
It's just too tempting. All that potential $$$ just sitting out there prime for developers and the pols in their pockets.
Well, it sure seems like the
Well, it sure seems like the city was in an awful hurry to move on this while they just dumped the folks from the shelter out into the virtual street. I'm sure that once this bridge business is concluded, they'll be asking for input about what to do with the land. And a well-prepared plan will be introduced at the first meeting for "comments."
I'll gladly don my
tri-cornered tin foil hat for this one.
I have the same gut feeling on this. It is apparently too valuable for the city to not repurpose it in some way that can generate favor/money for as of yet unknown interested parties.
I think the city took what was a fairly reasonable housing solution (given the reasonable "Nimby" attitude towards a long term shelter) and are going to end up forcing the LTS down an unwilling neighborhood's throat.
Either way - it's ridiculous that the bridge issue wasn't addressed in due time and ended up having to be an emergency shut down.
Not only that , look who the
Not only that , look who the neighbors are , the City of Quincy and Marina Bucks, oops Bay. Any new action to the old island will bring all sorts of pressures from the varied interests, which all funnel down to the common denominator , Money. And there is a vacuum in the air , with all these hospitals going belly up. It is going to create a vortex of social services and real estate.
Add to. Walsh Construction :
BOSTON (AP) — The city of Boston has begun demolition of a structurally deficient bridge that led to a homeless shelter on a Boston Harbor island.
The closure of the 53-year-old bridge in October forced the evacuation of the 450-bed shelter and other programs on Long Island.
The public works department said Monday the demolition was underway with a target completion date of April 30.
The city said Walsh Construction Co., a Chicago-based firm with a regional office in Canton, was awarded the $20.6 million contract after submitting the lowest bid among seven firms.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Boston-begins-demolition-of-crumbl...
Also ,
http://bostonnewsgroup.com/2015/01/05/long-island-bridge-demolition-to-b...
Quincy and Long Island Bridge Construction
I just heard of this now but as a resident of the City of Quincy, I hope that City of Boston is going to pay for all of the damage they'll do to our roads during this construction effort.
A girl can dream but I have a gut feeling that this will end up coming out of my pocket somehow.
Well , do like Winthrop did,
Well , do like Winthrop did, close the road , make them barge the stuff over.You know they cant run the Shore drive , have to run E. Squantum street.They will be having barges anyway, but where they going to off load them now anyway? Fore River is my guess, Not sure if they could barge the steel over to Everett Proler anyway.
Walsh? Seriously?
Mayor Marty Walsh.
Walsh Construction Co. of Chicago.
Too obvious?
Does hizonner have family in Chicago?
Seriously?
Walsh is not exactly an uncommon name. They're not all related.
What Adam Said
Also, the 6 seconds it took to Google them will show their portfolio and a note that they're the third largest bridge builder in the country. https://www.walshgroup.com/portfolio/heavy+civil/bridges.html
The bridge they did up in Portsmouth looks great, so when the city sells the land for developers to build more luxury condos, the foreign investors who buy them will have nothing to worry about the two times a year they come to Boston.
Except that they're not being hired
to build a bridge. Rather, they're tearing one down. I fear this will turn out like the Rutherford Avenue overpass at Sullivan Square - key infrastructure that will never be replaced because of questionable public policy laws and decisions that make it all but impractical to build or replace anything.
You have to realize...
There aren't very many contractors out there that do bridge work. Sure, a bunch do restoration, but construction & demolition are entirely different. These companies often send crews where the work is, and will hire locally to supplement their ranks.
I won't
even pretend that I know much about any of this. My comment was simply in response to the comment about having the same name as the mayor, and just pointing out that the company seems to have some credentials in the space.