The Boylston St. Bridge Question

Extra precautions have been taken to make the Bolyston street bridge perfectly safe, and able to hold the great crowds of people which will pass over it on November 23, the day of the Yale game. An auxiliary fence will be put up, making the bridge the same width throughout, and preventing the congestion of people at the draw, which is about six feet narrower than the rest of the bridge. Extra police will be stationed to prevent the crowds from pushing too heavily against the railing, which is old and in a weak condition. The bridge has been examined during the past week, and these precautions will render it perfectly safe for the present.

An act was passed by the Legislature of 1904 authorizing an expenditure of $120,000 for a new Soldiers Field bridge, but the money has never been appropriated, and no plans for a new bridge have been made. A short time after the passage of this act, the Cambridge Bridge Commission passed a vote requesting Mr. Jackson, the city engineer of Boston, to make plans for a new bridge costing about $35,000, to be erected near the site of the present bridge. It was thought that a larger expenditure was unnecessary, as the alumni will probably erect a bridge over the Charles at some future time which will cost several hundred thousand dollars and will be more in keeping with the surroundings than any temporary structure.

Several of the citizens of Cambridge objected to the proposal to erect a new bridge, and a public hearing was held, at which President Eliot, Major Higginson, and Mr. A. C. Blackall, a noted architect of Boston, spoke against the plan, as well as many of the members of the Cambridge board of aldermen. The reasons given were that the new bridge would not be on the same route as the old one, and that as the bridge was only to be a temporary structure, it would not be substantial enough to justify an expenditure of $35,000. In consequence of these protests, the plan of building a new bridge has been abandoned for the present, and the bridge is examined at intervals to see that is is capable of supporting the weight which it is required to bear on the day of the Yale football game, on Class Day, and on the day of the Yale baseball game.

Besides the Cambridge Bridge Commission, which is composed of Mayer Fitzgerald of Boston, Mayor Wardwell of Cambridge, and Engineer Leavitt of Cambridge, and which has charge of the building of new bridges, there is another commission, composed of Mr. McDonald of Boston and Mr. George H. Clukas, the Superintendent of Streets of Cambridge, whose duty it is to look after the care and maintenance of bridges in Boston and Cambridge. It is impossible for these two commissions to work together, as they have no connection whatever with each other, and if there is to be a new bridge it is the duty of the former commission to superintend its erection, while the strengthening of the old bridge would come under the department of the latter commission. The result of this division of responsibility is that nothing definite has been done, further than to test the strength of the old bridge, and thus insure the safety of the crowds who will witness the Harvard-Yale game on Saturday.

"As soon as the matter is referred to us" said Mr. McDonald, the Boston commissioner who has charge of the repairing of bridges, in a recent interview, "something will be done immediately. There seems to be no question about the necessity of a new bridge."

Engineer Leavitt, of the Cambridge Bridge Commission, said, "The matter now rests with the Bridge Commissioners of Boston and Cambridge. Anything done to repair the old bridge should be done by the city governments."

City Engineer Jackson is preparing an estimate of the cost of putting the bridge in safe repair, which will be submitted at the next meeting of the Bridge Commission on November 26. It seems probable, judging from statements made by him, and by Mayor Wardwell in an interview last Tuesday, that the old bridge will merely be strengthened, and that a new bridge will not be built for ten or fifteen years.