Long Island Bridge

This article is about the former bridge in Massachusetts. For the proposed bridge across the Long Island Sound, see Long Island Sound link.

The Long Island Bridge, sometimes referred to as the Long Island Viaduct, was a bridge in Boston, Massachusetts, that connected Long Island to Moon Island. Both islands are located in Boston Harbor and are connected to the mainland via a causeway from Moon Island to Squantum, a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts.

Long Island Bridge
Long Island Bridge in May 2009
Coordinates	42°19′N 70°59′W
Crosses	Boston Harbor
Locale	Boston, Massachusetts and Quincy, Massachusetts
Other name(s)	Long Island Viaduct
Owner	City of Boston[1]
Characteristics
Design	Warren truss
Material	Steel, concrete and rebar
Total length	3,450 ft (1,051.6 m)[2]
Width	30.0 ft
History
Designer	Crandall Engineering Company[2]
Constructed by	Bethlehem Steel Corporation
Construction start	1950
Construction end	1951
Opened	August 4, 1951; 73 years ago (1951-08-04)
Closed	October 8, 2014 (2014-10-09) (demolished 2015)
Replaces	Ferry service
Location

History

Constructed at a cost of $2,000,000, the bridge was opened on August 4, 1951.^[3] Before the bridge was opened, Long Island was accessible only by the ferry James M. Curley. The bridge was built to provide better access to Long Island Hospital, an infectious disease hospital^[4] serving 1,200 chronically ill patients. After the hospital's closure, in 1983,^[4] the bridge provided access to other city facilities on the island, including a homeless shelter, programs for patients with substance abuse problems, and a fire station.

A Fields Corner–Long Island bus service over the bridge was operated by the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway until 1972, then by the MBTA until 1976.^[5] The MBTA resumed service with route 276 Long Island Hospital–Boston City Hospital in 1983, with route 275 added in 1994. After a weight restriction was placed on the bridge in 2007, the two routes terminated at the Fire Academy on Moon Island, with a single route 274 bus shuttling over the bridge.^[5][6]

Closure

The ruins of the Long Island Bridge in 2025

Support piers for former bridge in 2017

In October 2014, all access to Long Island was cut off for the indefinite future since the then Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, took the warning of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation about the condition of the Long Island Bridge being unsafe. All those living on Long Island and being serviced by recovery programs or as guests in the homeless shelter were no longer able to go there or use it for services. They were abruptly relocated elsewhere on an emergency basis.^[7][8]

In January 2015, demolition of the bridge began with the central span section being removed and ferried away in February.^[9][10] In a series of controlled demolitions, the remainder of the bridge was destroyed in March and April. By 2018, the city had committed $92 million to replace the bridge, but Quincy objected to the planned replacement.^[11] In July 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the Quincy Conservation Commission, which had rejected Boston's plans for the new bridge, did not have jurisdiction to overrule the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection approval of the plan.^[12]

See also

• Mass & Cass