Drivers Brace For Months Of Traffic Delays In Medford After I-93 Bridge Crash
MEDFORD (CBS) - Medford residents are bracing for months of misery after a truck slammed into an I-93 overpass on Monday. All lanes have reopened, but it's going to take a lot longer to fix the bridge.
"Oh, I knew it was going to be terrible, I didn't know it was going to be this bad," Patricia Mucci said.
People living in the Medford Heights neighborhood are feeling the fallout from the I-93 crash.
"Since I do home care I have to travel 93 and get onto 16 and now it's the pits because I can't access it really quickly," she said.
"I think people are going to start catching on, take this street the one behind us," Sophia Zavarelli added.
The over height truck smashing into the Roosevelt Circle bridge, caused a major headache for MassDOT.
"I expect that to be somewhere in the neighborhood of eight months or longer this was a catastrophic damage to the bridge which means we have to come up with a completely new design that we can't come up with overnight," MassDOT state highway administrator Jonathan Gulliver explained.
The day it happened, Sophia Zavarelli was home to hear it.
"It sounded like a truck completely tipped over that's what I thought it was and I was like oh my God," Zavarelli explained.
Though all lanes will be open on both north and southbound sides of 93, there will be a lane restriction on the Roosevelt Circle Bridge starting Friday and for the foreseeable future.
"It makes my day that much longer and it's going to be that way for a long time," Mucci said.
MassDOT says it comes down to the extent of the damage and how busy 93 is. Gulliver said the highway is easily traveled by more than 120,000 vehicles daily.
Neighbors say the area is already a merging nightmare.
"People are impatient, especially early in the morning and trying to get out of work and stuff I think it will make it worse," Mucci said.
More than 800 square feet of the bridge deck had to be removed along with a giant beam. As of now, there isn't an estimate on the damage.
"Bridges do get struck on occasion from over height vehicles," Gulliver said. "This is by far the worst one that I think any of us can recall happening in a long time."