Construction
The BU Bridge was built in 1928, on a design by Andrew Canzanelli, replacing an 1850s drawbridge known as the Brookline Bridge. Canzanelli also designed the Weeks footbridge and the first shell constructed on the Esplanade.
The bridge crosses diagonally over an older, now single-tracked railroad-only bridge carrying the Grand Junction Line. This bridge, formerly owned by CSX Transportation, was purchased by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the MBTA in 2010. The long-postponed Urban Ring mass transit project is expected to include a bridge at or near this location, to carry the planned route across the Charles River.
During the period of planning for the Inner Belt, the BU Bridge represented the planned crossing point of the highway from Boston to Cambridge. Several plans were discussed for the area; had the expressway been built over the river, the bridge would have been demolished and replaced with a high-level highway overpass, while if the road had been built as a tunnel, the bridge would have been left standing as a crossing for surface route traffic.
Read more about this topic: Boston University Bridge
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