Beverly Hall-Whitaker Drawbridge Replacement Update Coming In March

BEVERLY, MA — Beverly residents looking for an update on what has been forecast to be a decade-long process of fully replacing the Hall-Whitaker Drawbridge that was closed to vehicle traffic nearly two years ago might get some new answers at an upcoming public meeting on the Hall-Whitaker and deficient Kernwood Bridge projects.

State Department of Transportation officials will be at the Beverly Middle School auditorium for the meeting that will be between 6:30 and 8 p.m. on March 14.

The update will be the first one shared publicly since a progress report was issued late in December, which said the state DOT "made a request to all regulatory agencies to expedite permit application reviews and approvals in order to accelerate the construction advertisement date (on a temporary bridge) by four-to-six months and maximize the amount of work possible in the first construction season."

Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill said at the time the progress report was released that the city has been pushing state and federal agencies and officials to hold another public meeting to provide in-person updates and field resident questions and concerns since its last community meeting in June.

"We are currently trying to get MassDOT to agree to the next meeting in Beverly to take place in February," Cahill said at the time. "Whether this meeting takes place in February or later, we will keep pushing."

MassDOT officials at the June public meeting said that the target for having a temporary replacement of the Hall-Whitaker Bridge — which was ordered closed to auto traffic in June 2022— at that point was the middle of 2027.

Demolition of the current Hall-Whitaker Bridge and construction on the new permanent drawbridge would then begin upon the opening of the temporary fixed bridge in 2027.

At the same time, work will be done to stabilize the deficient Kernwood Bridge pending the completion of the temporary Hall-Whitaker Bridge before that bridge is rebuilt as well.

MassDOT representatives said the timeline for both permanent bridges to be completed is 2032 — about three years sooner than the original 13-year timeline proposed in the first public meeting following the Hall-Whitaker closure nearly two years ago.

MassDOT officials said there are no plans to take any homes as part of the right-of-way for the temporary bridge.

Some of the regulatory hurdles are environmental and have to do with restrictions on the time of year when certain river floor construction that disrupts the silt can be done because of protected spawning fish.

Speaking at the U.S. House Committee on Water Resources in December, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Salem) called the timeline for reconstruction "beyond comprehension" but one that could become "a great success story" if the bridges can be replaced in a more timely fashion than what is currently being forecast.

"This is a bridge barely wider than the size of this room," Moulton said on Capitol Hill. "The Chinese would take it down in a night. And, yet, what we're being told is that it will take until 2027 just to get a temporary replacement. And 2035 for a final replacement.

"To be honest, I think that's an embarrassment. Onerous permitting requirements coupled with a complicated swing-span bridge design are apparently to blame. But it's not like we've never done any of these things in the past. We've been building swing-span bridges for hundreds of years."

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