Army Corps Recommends Replacement of Cape Cod Bridges

Saturday, October 5 2019 - 7:35am

<p>A draft report released this week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is recommending replacement of both the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.</p>

A draft report released this week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is recommending replacement of both the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.

The replacement project would cost $1 billion and is the preferred alternative to continuing to repair the bridges, which were built 84 years ago and are functionally obsolete, the draft evaluation by the Corps has found.

The two bridges span the Cape Cod Canal and provide access to Cape Cod, including the ferry ports to the two Islands in Woods Hole and Hyannis.

A series of public meetings have been scheduled by the New England District for the Corps this month on the Cape, in Plymouth and Boston. The first meeting will be held in Bourne on Oct. 16.

The Corps is inviting public comment on the draft report and assessment on its wesbite through Nov. 1.

A final report is expected in February 2020.

Comments

What will be the toll charged

Larry King Duxbury, MA

What will be the toll charged to cars and trucks using those two new bridges?

Toll bridge will help pay the

Andy c Bourne

Toll bridge will help pay the 1b cost .

love user taxes, frankly don

ECS edgartown

love user taxes, frankly don't much care what the toll is and glad to see them being replaced, love them but they are dangerous. replacing them may lead to a total, drastically needed redesign of the mounting and dismounting of the bridges. Probably won't see the project complete in my life time, I'm 70.

The Cape Cod Canal bisects

Laurence King Duxbury, MA

The Cape Cod Canal bisects the town of Bourne. I know Bourne residents who live in the town and have work related, or other reasons, to travel to both sides of the canal, often multiple times a day. I don't think it fair to those Bourne residents to pay a toll each time they travel from one side of town to the other. This bridge replacement and expansion is really for the convenience of hundreds of thousands of visitors who travel by car or bus to the Cape and Islands as a tourists every year, not for Cape residents.

This is another Big Dig

Radu Sandwich

This is another Big Dig project proposal that will dive deep into Cape Cod residents pockets. Compare it to the way those bridges have been built in the mid 30th.

Be innovative - look into

RT Vineyard Haven

Be innovative - look into plastics. Stronger than steel, does not corrode, less expensive, next to zero maintenance, and would use a lot of recycled plastic.

Yeah...maybe the same

Mark Edgartown

Yeah...maybe the same polymers that engineers at Boeing and Airbus touted that are now cracking in airframes.

Has there been any thought

Matt Edgartown

Has there been any thought into replacing the bridges with tunnels? Seems like construction costs would be lower and it would be cheaper to maintain. Furthermore both bridges could be active during the new construction

Tunnel would make a lot of

Scott Barnstable

Tunnel would make a lot of sense.

glad to see someone thinking

ECS edgartown

glad to see someone thinking outside the box. probably is a better solution. It certainly better than the suggestion to use plastic; was he really serious?

How is a bridge “functionally

John Aldeborgh Edgartown

How is a bridge “functionally obsolete”? It’s function is to allow vehicles to cross over the Cape Cod Canal. I believe both bridges fulfill the function. Are the bridges maintenance hogs, maybe. Are the bridges able to meet peak traffic levels, no. Would a third or even a forth bridge help the bottleneck coming on to (or off of) the Cape, yes but the roads are themselves bottlenecks as they offer insufficient capacity for peak demand. The problem is bigger than simply the bridges.

Built 84 years ago, Bourne Bridge should be replaced, Army Corps draft report says.