Beverly's Broken Bridges Up For Discussion At Public Meeting

BEVERLY, MA — North Shore residents who have been waiting months for answers on the future of the Hall-Whitaker Bridge in Beverly might not like what they are about to hear.

The state Department of Transportation and the city have a public meeting scheduled for Tuesday night to give in an update on the bridge that was deemed unsafe and closed to traffic in June.

Engineers spent the summer trying to determine whether a temporary bridge could be constructed in its place or whether it needed to be fully replaced.

State transportation officials are expected to discuss the pros and cons of different courses of action on Tuesday night. But one common aspect of all of them appears to be years of continued disruption.

"The likely scenario is — from what I am gleaning — is that we're looking at a decade or more of bridge work in the area," State Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem) told Patch ahead of the public meeting.

The meeting is scheduled for the Beverly High School auditorium at 6:30 p.m.

At issue is the logistics of replacing the Hall-Whitaker Bridge at the same time that the Kernwood Bridge is also due for replacement. A state master plan last year slated the Kernwood to be replaced before the Hall-Whitaker, but the Hall-Whitaker being deemed deficient and closed a week later in June forced a reassessment of priorities that will all need to be dealt with at some point in the relatively near future.

"A lot of people were upset that they didn't have notice of this closure," Lovely said. "I hear from neighbors who are still quite upset. It has had an impact on neighborhoods with cut-through traffic. There is a school there."

"There has been quite an impact on that area. They are cut off from downtown."

MassDOT said that both the Hall-Whitaker and Kernwood Bridge concerns and potential remedies will be discussed Tuesday night.

Mayor Mike Cahill said during the June public meeting right after the bridge closed to traffic that the hope was to have state officials back to discuss alternatives sometime in the summer, but that was extended into October.

Lovely said that while the Hall-Whitaker has been "pushed way up the list" of state DOT priorities, even constructing a temporary replacement for the Hall-Whitaker will be a lengthy process that could take years.

"These bridges are under pretty significant surveillance and it was a surprise to MassDOT that Hall-Whitaker got to this point so quickly," Lovel said. "We hope that they are going to present scenarios to the public (Tuesday night). They recognize that they have to keep the public informed."

"We're looking for some comprehensive information."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)