Mayor Jon Mitchell on the Fairhaven-New Bedford bridge: “I will continue to champion its replacement”

“My statement on this week’s closure of the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge — what the public should know:

The sudden closure of the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge this week, which my office learned about only through media reports, is yet another visible reminder that the structure should have been replaced long ago. Built in 1905 when New Bedford was still a whaling port and before the universal use of automobiles, the bridge was designed for the needs of a by-gone era, and it has deteriorated into a state of disrepair that makes closures increasingly frequent. This isn’t news to anyone in our region.

Everyone in Greater New Bedford knows what it means to be “stuck on the bridge”, and everyone familiar with Port of New Bedford realizes that the bridge’s narrow passages inhibit investment and job creation in the Norther Harbor by businesses that utilize large vessels. Our region’s residents and businesses deserve a bridge they can rely on.

It is for these and other reasons that throughout my time in office, beginning with my State of the City address in 2014, that I have called upon the state, which owns and operates the bridge, to prioritize its replacement (I’ve been on this issue for much longer. In college, I wrote a term paper for an urban economics course in which I argued for the replacement of this same bridge). The lack of progress has been frustrating to say the least.

I believe it is important for the public to understand the current state of the project, as the matter has received scant media coverage in the last several years. In 2014, at my urging, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation launched a feasibility study to determine whether the bridge should be replaced, and if so, what should it be replaced with. There were public hearings at the time, and a detailed engineering analysis was performed, resulting in a comprehensive report, which can be found here: https://archives.lib.state.ma.us/handle/2452/617443. The report is lengthy, but you can get the gist of it by reading the executive summary in the beginning.

To my mind, the major findings of the report are these:

• The state acknowledges that the current bridge is “functionally obsolete.”
• Refraining from replacing the bridge would itself be an expensive proposition. In 2014 dollars, it would cost $45 million simply to repair it.
• Replacing the bridge with either a “double bascule” or “vertical lift” style bridge would cost about $120 million (again in 2014 dollars).
• Either of these replacement scenarios would result in fewer and faster bridge openings, and a wider passage for large commercial vessels.

In short, there is no serious debate that the bridge should be replaced. Nor has there been for decades (take a look at page 20 of the study to see all the major reviews conducted on the bridge since the mid-1960’s). Unfortunately, the state has never moved the project to the next step, which is the design phase.

I will continue to champion the bridge’s replacement. With the recent influx of federal infrastructure funds into the state’s coffers, we have been urging the state again to move the project to a design phase.

Even though the bridge is not owned by the city, it is enormously important to our local economy, and must be replaced with a modern facility. Our region’s residents deserve nothing less.” -Jon Mitchell.