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The Cape Cod bridges are up for 'adoption' this month. Wait, what?
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The A.J. Brown trade wait is finally over. The New England Patriots made the long-rumored deal official yesterday, sending two future draft picks to the Philadelphia Eagles for the 28-year-old star wide receiver (and apparent childhood Tom Brady fan). The Associated Press has more here on what Brown's addition means for the Patriots and his reunion with Mike Vrabel.
Now to the news:
Free to a good home: The Cape Cod bridges are up for "adoption." After more than 90 years of bridge parenting, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is making the Sagamore and Bourne bridges available to the public, as the project to replace them nears on the horizon. But this isn't like your local adopt-a-highway program. WBUR's Dan Guzman spoke to the Army Corps about what a potential bridge adoption entails.
- What it means: Put simply, "they will have to take the entire bridge," Army Corps spokesperson Sheandra Sterling told Dan. That means physically dismantling the massive steel-and-concrete spans and moving them somewhere else. Sterling said applicants will need a relocation plan and to show they have the money to maintain the historic structures. "Then they'll have to demonstrate the ability to handle the environmental compliance because these are old bridges from the 1930s, so they will have lead paint and things like that," she added.
- Who adopts a bridge? The offer is open to any public and private entity. Sterling said there are people out there who are "very interested" in historic preservation. "They see them as historical pieces that they want to keep or use parts from them to repurpose for whatever reason," she said. Perhaps the most famous example is when an American businessman bought the soon-to-be-replaced London Bridge; over the course of over two years, it was then taken apart and shipped piece by piece across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Panama Canal to Arizona, where it was rebuilt by Lake Havasu.
- Why are they up for adoption? It's actually required by federal law. A 1966 law mandates the Army Corps put old infrastructure, like the bridges, up for grabs before replacing them. However, according to Sterling, actual adoption isn't something that happens with much, if any, frequency. If there are no takers, the Army Corp's plan calls for the Cape bridges to be demolished after their replacements open.
- What's next? The deadline for bridge adoption applications is soon: June 26. So far, Sterling said the Corps haven't heard from anyone interested.
911: The city of Somerville is piloting a "co-response program" that will dispatch trained clinicians alongside police officers when responding to mental health crisis calls. The pilot — modeled after similar programs in Boston, Cambridge and other cities — will run for the next four months for eight hours a week. "This is a response to a clear call from the community," Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson told WBUR's Amy Sokolow. "We've heard it for years. There's been frustration with the lack of progress on this, and we're excited to really start this work in earnest."
- Wilson said the city is already thinking about expansion and an ultimate goal of a "standalone clinician response" for certain mental health calls. " We know a lot of folks right away would love it to jump to a point where we can have a clinician-only response," he said. "I want a roadmap to where we can get to that because we want to have a full range of options at our disposal when there is an emergency, when someone's in crisis, to make sure we're sending in the exact response that they need to help them get through that moment."
No deal: Harvard's Graduate Students Union ended its 40-day strike yesterday without a contract deal. The union said it's halting its work stoppage with the end of the academic year, but that contract negotiations will continue this summer. The news comes less than a week after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu canceled a planned speech to Harvard Law School graduates in deference to the striking students.
P.S.— Are you a renter who wants a heat pump in your apartment? Or a landlord who's heard all about it from their tenants? Our climate and environment team is working on a story about how renters use Mass Save — and we want to hear your stories! Reach out to WBUR reporting fellow Bianca Garcia at bygarcia@bu.edu to get in touch and share a bit about your situation.
