Save the Longfellow!!
Our Legacy of Neglect: The Longfellow Bridge and the Cost of Deferred Maintenance
Pioneer released its latest research report, Our Legacy of Neglect: The Longfellow Bridge and the Cost of Deferred Maintenance, yesterday. Take a look at the website we put together to launch the paper at www.savethelongfellow.com. In particular, you should click on the link for the photo-rich presentation — a slide show of beautiful photos by Pioneer’s own Peter Begley.
The paper itself details the Commonwealth’s neglect of the bridge – there have only been two maintenance projects of any scale on the bridge in its 100 year history. But, the Longfellow is just a small part of a much larger story: the extent to which we’ve neglected our public assets all across the state. The MBTA, MassHighway, UMass-Amherst, DCR and the County Sheriffs all face maintenance backlogs exceeding $1 billion apiece. Across the Commonwealth, we face a deferred maintenance bill of over $17 billion.
We offer a detailed assessment of the bridge, the overall problem, and offer some solutions for addressing these massive backlog. Hope you enjoy the paper and feel free to send us your comments.
Also, here’s some of the coverage of the paper:
BostonNow article (scroll and click for their video feed)
Greater Boston segment (link coming)
WCVB webpage (w/ AP story plus forum)
WBZ TV (Morning report, Noon report (very brief), Lead Story at 6 PM (w/ interviews))
BlueMassGroup post (I think the comments are getting rather rough…)
I’m also told we were on WBUR and Fox25. Let me know if you find other places.
And thanks to all for your interest in the topic.
