Cape Cod Canal Bridges Project Update
The Future of the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges
By Dean Lundgren, President, Davisville Civic Association
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a Zoom meeting presentation sponsored by the Harvard Club of Cape Cod entitled “Our Vital Gateway: The Future of the Cape Cod Canal Bridges,” given by Steven Tupper, Deputy Director of the Cape Cod Commission. Steven grew up here in Falmouth and currently lives in Falmouth, adjacent to a Cranberry Bog (does it get any better?). The title of the presentation was certainly appropriate as these canal bridges are, indeed, our “gateway” to the rest of the world from this special place of Cape Cod.
The presenter began by stating that 86% of the Cape Cod land is either built out or protected. Four priorities of the Cape Cod Commission are:
Wastewater management
Coastal zones ($30 billion of Cape real estate is in flood areas and therefore vulnerable to sea rise)
Housing crisis for many families
Infrastructure needs – including the canal bridges and road approaches
When the current canal bridges were completed in 1935, the Cape Cod year-round population was 36,600 people; today, that number is around 250,000, or a 6.8 times increase. In a busy day currently, 140,000 cars cross the two bridges; 40 million cars passed over the two bridges in 2021. Among the deficiencies of the existing bridges are lack of auxiliary lanes, lack of shoulders, and narrow travel lanes – these bridges were built for the width of cars in the 1930s, not today’s trailer trucks.
In the early planning, consideration was given to the following alternatives, all of which were rejected as not feasible:
Building a third bridge and retaining the existing bridges
Building tunnels under the canal (even though some folks drive around with bumper stickers entitled “Canal Tunnel”)
Filling in the canal – rejected by the military for defense purposes
Low elevation cause-way type bridges (which would eliminate the canal passage for large vessels)
The selected alternative for each of the new bridges is four travel lanes, two auxiliary lanes, and provision for walking and bicycles.
Graphic: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District
Expected costs will exceed $1 billion. Joint planning is being undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers for the bridges and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) for the roadway access. There is a Memorandum of Understanding between these two organizations regarding roles and responsibilities. After the completion, MassDOT will take over both the bridges and roads, as the current canal bridges are the only two bridges in this country for which the Army Corps of Engineers are currently responsible. The state of Massachusetts has already committed $300 million to the project. Despite many comments to the contrary, Federal funding is not yet in place.
Land acquisition for the roadways has not yet started. Initial priority will be to construct the new Bourne Bridge. While traffic over the bridges declined at the beginning of the pandemic, year 2021 traffic was at an all-time high, partially attributed to many individuals working remotely from their second home on the Cape.
The height of the new traffic bridges will be 7 feet higher to accommodate potential sea rise. In case you are interested, the new bridges are anticipated to have a 100-year life. In the meantime, to make it safer, and not directly related to the new bridge, there are plans in place to re-do the Bourne Rotary, similar to the recently re-constructed Otis Rotary, to improve its geometry and lane markings, reflecting in part that drivers from other parts of our country are not as familiar with rotaries, as we, Cape Codders, supposedly are!
Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District