The Charlestown High Bridge (referred to as the

John F. Fitzgerald John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald (February 11, 1863 – October 2, 1950) was an American Democratic politician from Boston, Massachusetts. He served as a U.S. Representative and Mayor of Boston. He also made unsuccessful runs for the United ...

Bridge on old

AAA AAA, Triple A, or Triple-A is a three-letter initialism or abbreviation which may refer to: Airports * Anaa Airport in French Polynesia (IATA airport code AAA) * Logan County Airport (Illinois) (FAA airport code AAA) Arts, entertainment, and me ...

Tourbook maps) spanned the

Charles River The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

and was part of

I-93 Interstate 93 (I-93) is an Interstate Highway in the New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the United States. Spanning approximately along a north–south axis, it is one of three primary Interstate Highways ...

/ US 1 at the north end of the

Central Artery The Central Artery (officially the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway) is a section of freeway in downtown Boston, Massachusetts; it is designated as Interstate 93, US 1 and Route 3. The original Artery, constructed in the 1950s, was named aft ...

. This double-decked

truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

, built in 1954, was to originally carry

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

through Boston from southwest to northeast in tandem with the

Tobin Bridge The Maurice J. Tobin Memorial Bridge (formerly the Mystic River Bridge) is a cantilever truss bridge that spans more than two miles (3 km) from Boston to Chelsea over the Mystic River in Massachusetts. The bridge is the largest in New Eng ...

, built in 1950. The I-95 project and several other highway projects in and around Boston, including both the highly controversial Inner Belt ( I-695) and the Southwest Corridor, completing the right-of-way intended to bring I-95 into Boston from

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

, were cancelled due to heavy public opposition in the early 1970s. I-93 was allowed to be completed from the Yankee Division Highway ( Route 128) to the foot of the Charlestown High Bridge in 1969, and the I-93 designation was extended onto the bridge and the Central Artery in the early 1970s. Originally intended to carry 75,000 vehicles per day in the 1950s, the Charlestown High Bridge carried upwards of 200,000 vehicles per day in the 1990s. For years, the bridge was a major traffic bottleneck that affected southbound commuters from Boston's North Shore and southern

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

for miles. Travelling northbound, due to a poorly planned lane drop to accommodate incoming vehicles from

Storrow Drive Storrow Drive, officially James Jackson Storrow Memorial Drive, is a major crosstown parkway in Boston, Massachusetts, running east–west along the southern bank of the Charles River. It is restricted to cars; trucks and buses are not perm ...

, traffic backups leading to the High Bridge threatened to cause hours of daily gridlock in downtown Boston. These problems were addressed in the planning and construction of the $14.6 billion

Big Dig The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project), commonly known as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery of Interstate 93 (I-93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 1.5-mile (2.4&n ...

project. The cable-stayed Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, which opened fully to traffic in December 2003, replaced the Charlestown High Bridge, which was demolished in 2004.

References

External links

* Bridges completed in 1954 Bridges in Boston Demolished bridges in the United States Interstate 93 U.S. Route 1 Road bridges in Massachusetts Bridges on the Interstate Highway System Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System Bridges over the Charles River 1954 establishments in Massachusetts 2004 disestablishments in Massachusetts {{Boston-struct-stub

See also

References

External links