| Fetchwikidata: | coordinates |
| Bridge Name: | Long Island Bridge |
| Other Name: | Long Island Viaduct |
| Crosses: | Boston Harbor |
| Locale: | Boston, Massachusetts and Quincy, Massachusetts |
| Owner: | City of Boston[1] |
| Designer: | Crandall Engineering Company |
| Design: | Warren truss |
| Material: | Steel, concrete and rebar |
| Length: | 34501NaN1[2] |
| Width: | 30.0 ft |
| Builder: | Bethlehem Steel Corporation |
| Begin: | 1950 |
| Complete: | 1951 |
| Closed: | (demolished 2015) |
| Replaces: | Ferry service |
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.
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 –Long Island bus service over the bridge was operated by the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway until 1972, then by the MBTA until 1976. 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]
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.[6] [7]
In January 2015, demolition of the bridge began with the central span section being removed and ferried away in February.[8] [9] 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.[10] 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.[11]