Barriers get pushed back as Parker River Bridge reopens on January 5th.
First built in 1758, famous folks including; Benedict Arnold, George Washington, James Monroe, and Lafayette have used the bridge over the Parker River to get from one side to the other.
However, since September of 2007, only MassHighway and S&R Corporation employees have been in the bridge area on Route 1A in Newbury since its closure due to its unsafe condition.
To the surprise of many, the rebuilding process was finished months earlier than expected and the bridge reopened on Monday afternoon (January 5th) in a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
One of the speakers at the ceremony, MassHighway Commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky, praised the project as, “a model for other projects we do,” and, “the one we’ll refer to often in the future.”
Many who drove over it regularly did not easily accept the idea that the Parker River Bridge even needed repair. Those who had seen it from below knew differently.
“We weren’t surprised when they said that the bridge needed repairs,” said Barbara Page a resident just up High Road from the bridge who was on hand for the ceremony. “My husband (Arthur) and I are boaters and when we went underneath the bridge we could see the terrible condition it was in. You’d swear that you’d never go over the top of it once you saw underneath.”
Another speaker, Representative Harriett Stanley (D-West Newbury), became a convert to the need to repair the bridge in 1997. She informed me that she “crawled down the rock embankment that year after being told about the problem and took some pictures of the underside of the bridge.”
Convinced by what she saw, she jokingly described herself from that time on as the, “chief knee breaker,” and, “arm twister,” to see that steps were taken to make the bridge safe. “I have a MassHighway file on this bridge that is about a foot thick,” she recalled. “That is why having the bridge fixed and reopened makes this a very exciting day for me.”
The other area representative (State Senator Bruce Tarr) was equally pleased. “This is a time when for once it worked out right and we’re all the better for it. Everyone who got involved made a difference.”
The general contractor, S&R Corporation of Lowell, received compliments from every speaker. Their willingness to work extra hours, Saturdays, and in poor weather took months away from the projected reopening in mid-2010.
S&R project manager Russ Burnham shrugged off the congratulations with, “We did it in less time than usual because we had cooperation from everybody.”
Russ told me that the work wasn’t completely finished yet. “We’ve got to put the top down on the road and replace the temporary sidewalks with concrete ones. We will do the work in the spring and will not need to close the bridge to do it. We may take a lane but it should be fairly uneventful.”
Newbury assistant harbormaster Terry O’Malley was the first to drive his car over the bridge from the north side once the barriers were removed. Anticipating some sort of historical explanation for his positioning himself at the head of the line, I asked him about it. “I just want to get home,” he said smiling. No more ten mile round-about routes home or to work in his future and thankfully for many others in the area as well.
(To appear in The Town Common on January 14th)
McClelland Miscellanea 