By Nathan Metcalf, Special to the Reporter
State transportation officials on Tuesday laid out early design options for replacing the nearly century-old Beades Bridge on Morrissey Boulevard, drawing pointed questions from residents about cost, climate resilience, traffic disruption, environmental contamination and whether the bridge should exist at all.
The meeting, held at Boston College High School and attended by roughly 35 residents, marked the first formal public information session for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s replacement project, which remains in its preliminary design phase and is not expected to begin construction until 2028 or 2029, officials said.
Built in 1927 and last rehabilitated in 2002, the drawbridge carries about 53,000 vehicles a day and has experienced repeated mechanical failures in recent years, including incidents in 2023 and 2024 when the bridge was stuck open or unable to lock closed.
MassDOT officials said the bridge remains safe but has reached the end of its useful life.
Officials from MassDOT and their engineering consultant, WSP, presented two primary replacement concepts: a modern movable drawbridge or a fixed bridge that would no longer open for boat traffic.
While a drawbridge would preserve full maritime access, MassDOT said a fixed bridge would be significantly cheaper and faster to build, eliminating traffic stoppages and long-term operating costs while still allowing limited marine craft access beneath it.
RELATED: The slide-deck from this week’s MassDOT meeting
The Beades Bridge spans the narrow channel separating Dorchester Bay Basin, a small inlet, from the open waters of Dorchester Bay. According to MassDOT, the Dorchester Yacht Club, located within the basin, is the drawbridge’s top user.
MassDOT said both options would improve pedestrian and bicycle accommodations and would require construction of a temporary bridge to maintain traffic during the project.
William Varrell, a project manager with WSP, said the temporary span would be built off-site and installed over a roughly 48-hour period, requiring the brief closure of Morrissey Boulevard.
During the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, residents raised concerns about how the bridge project addresses sea-level rise and chronic coastal flooding, which regularly inundate sections of Morrissey Boulevard. Project managers said the bridge would be raised “as high as possible”, approximately 14 to 15 feet above its current elevation, within constraints imposed by the Interstate 93 underpass and federal accessibility requirements.
Those explanations fed into broader concerns about coordination across multiple state and city projects in the area.
Don Walsh, a Savin Hill native and chair of the Savin Hill Civic Association’s Community Benefits Committee, said residents have spent years attending meetings for separate developments and infrastructure studies along the corridor without seeing a unified plan emerge.
“We don’t want a Beades Bridge study by itself, a Kosciuszko Circle study by itself, a Morrissey Boulevard study by itself, and housing projects by themselves,” Walsh said. “That doesn’t make sense to us, because we’re all in the same traffic jams together.”
During the meeting, Walsh pressed state officials on whether there is a single person or agency responsible for coordinating the various state-controlled projects with the city. When MassDOT Major Projects Manager Joseph Breen did not name a head planner, a wave of snickering and eye rolls rippled across the audience.
“It’s very disturbing to us that we don’t see anything like comprehensive planning even being discussed,” Walsh said.
Greg Bedrosian, commodore of the Dorchester Yacht Club, said the debate over the bridge should account not only for boat access, but for the condition of the water in the bay and basin.
Despite his club being the group most affected by the loss of a drawbridge, Bedrosian said he would accept a fixed-span bridge if it were paired with meaningful cleanup of Dorchester Bay Basin.
“Will we lose some members? Yes,” Bedrosian said. “But we also have to think about the people who swim there.”
“If you’re saving roughly $70 million by going with a fixed bridge, there should be some money to clean up the contamination,” he said. “People swim there. People fish there. Kids use that water.”
Others questioned whether rebuilding the bridge makes sense at all.
Dorchester resident John Wixted argued that Morrissey Boulevard functions largely as a commuter funnel rather than a local road, citing estimates that 75 to 85 percent of traffic consists of through traffic heading to Interstate 93.
“Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars raising a road that keeps flooding, why not move that commuter traffic onto I-93 where it belongs?” Wixted said.
Wixted suggested adding new Interstate 93 on- and off-ramps at the Freeport Street–Morrissey Boulevard intersection just south of the bridge, allowing through traffic to bypass the waterfront corridor entirely and opening the door to eliminating the bridge and restoring portions of the shoreline.
Wixted’s idea intrigued several residents. After the meeting, about 10 people gathered around him to continue discussing his ideas, including one woman who raised her voice to say, “No bridge! We want a beach now instead!”
Other concerns raised during the question-and-answer period included traffic congestion during construction, particularly the potential closure of the Interstate 93 northbound off-ramp at Exit 13B; the width and safety of proposed bike and pedestrian accommodations; noise from bridge operations; and whether meeting materials and presentations were accessible to residents who do not speak English as a first language.
Breen, the MassDOT major projects manager, said the agency would review public input before advancing to a preferred design and expects to hold another public information meeting in the spring or summer of 2026.
