Asked at a community meeting if the state is considering replacing the Tobin Bridge with a tunnel, the project manager leading planning studies responded Wednesday that it wasn’t out of the question.
A working group is only two months into an 18-month study to examine options to succeed the 74-year-old bridge that connects Chelsea and Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood, and serves as a lifeline between Boston and the area north of the capital city.
The eventual project is all but certain to be enormously disruptive, given the tens of thousands of vehicles — 87,000 per typical weekday last year — that rely on the bridge that carries Route 1 over the Mystic River. But changes are also years away: the planning study alone will not be complete until the summer of 2026.
Community member Jeff Zoter asked at a Wednesday afternoon meeting about that planning study: “Has the possibility of a tunnel been eliminated from this planning?”
Massachusetts Department of Transportation project manager Patrick Snyder replied, “We have not gotten there yet.”
Snyder said, “We’re still sort of setting the foundation to get toward thinking about tunnels, bridges — what we call alternatives, and our alternatives development when we come up with ideas and screen and analyze the possibility of what those might be.”
“So, no,” he added, clarifying, to the question of whether the question of a tunnel had been eliminated.
Zoter’s question came in response to a conversation at the meeting about planning for sea level rise while designing a new bridge or tunnel that will be meant to stand well into the future.
VHB has been contracted to work with MassDOT to develop alternatives for a replacement of the bridge. VHB’s Michael Regan, managing director of transportation systems, planning and operations, said the level of the Mystic River is expected to rise 2.4 feet by 2050 and 4.2 feet by 2070.
Accounting for storm surge, sea levels could rise close to 10 feet,…