Winter 2002

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RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY Work on the Coolidge Bridge is finally underway

by Marietta Pritchard '73G

"GRIDLOCK WITH CORNFIELDS": slowing traffic, but not as much as feared. (For larger view of Ben Barnhart photo, click in right navigation.) FOR ANYONE WHO'S DRIVEN THROUGH through Times Square, traveled Washington’s Beltway or tried to get back from Logan Airport at rush hour, the eight-mile drive between Amherst and Northampton probably ranks low on the scale of big-league traffic. But for those who have to cross the Connecticut River at Hadley twice every working day, “gridlock with cornfields,” as one traveler described it, can be pretty frustrating. So, when it was announced several years ago that the state planned – finally – to repair the crumbling Coolidge Bridge, an audible groan went up throughout the Valley. Those who’d watched the bridge’s potholes turn to portholes knew that something had to be done, but no one wanted to be around when it happened. Friday afternoons were already bad enough, with traffic solid from the Hadley Common to Route 91 in Northampton. In spite of a free bus system and the Norwottuck bike trail, which opened in 1993, the number of cars crossing the river daily had grown from 22,000 in 1981 to 35,000 at last count. The Coolidge Bridge is the only way over the Connecticut for 10 miles in either direction, and what had once been a 15-minute drive through a pastoral landscape had turned into a clutch-destroying, temper-testing crawl of up to an hour long. WHAT ABOUT EMERGENCIES DURING CONSTRUCTION? worried residents were (and are) asking. Suppose an ambulance or fire truck has to cross the bridge at 5 p.m. Friday? Local imaginings conjure up helicopters ferrying injured people from Amherst to the hospital in Northampton. In addition to being one of the area’s crucial transportation links, the 1937 bridge is one of our best examples of Art Deco architecture, says Susan Well, chair of the Northampton Historical Commission. Well’s commission, with its counterparts in Hadley and Boston, have worked hard to see that the rehabilitation is conducted with due respect for the aesthetic and historic value of the bridge. Because it will be widened from three lanes to four, the granite pylons at either end will be narrowed, but the design calls for the long sides of the structures, with their incised lettering, sculpted eagles, and bronze doors, lanterns and plaques, to retain their original appearance. The decorative railings, now in serious disrepair, will be reproduced line-for-line. AFTER SEVERAL YEARS OF DELAY as design issues were negotiated and environmental plans completed, the $19.8 million bridge reconstruction began in earnest in July 2001, and is expected to last two years. “But the big story,” says Paul Shuldiner, with evident relief, “is that the sky did not fall.” Shuldiner, director of the UMass Transportation Center and a professor of civil and environmental engineering here, is in charge of promoting transportation research and outreach in the entire university system and especially at the Amherst campus. While he takes no credit for the relative lack of disruption caused by the bridge repair so far, he says that he is “quietly accepting praise.” Shuldiner shares credit for the state’s new Regional Traveler Information Center, funded by federal appropriations, the university, and Five Colleges Inc. with assistance from MassHighway. Locally the focus is on traffic in the Route 9-Route 116 corridor. A Web site www.umass.edu/coolidgeinfo) includes a video-cam view of traffic near Bread & Circus supermarket in Hadley, and estimates travel time from there to the bridge; Shuldiner says the center hopes to make the site more useful by adding more camera locations. OF COURSE, EVEN THE MOST complete Web info isn’t much use if you’re already in the car. MassHighway has installed “variable message signs” to let drivers know about traffic delays, road closures, and accidents enroute, although so far the messages have remained more or less invariable, with information self-evident to regular travelers: “PLEASE USE CAUTION / BRIDGE WORK AHEAD / SPEED LIMIT 25 MPH.” The signs are part of a larger and thus far incomplete $1.7 million scheme known as the Advanced Traffic Management System, to be controlled by operators in Northampton. Construction and emergency workers are to have direct communication with the operators 24 hours a day; closed-circuit TV provides additional information. Flashing white lights on either side of the bridge warn drivers of approaching emergency vehicles. And police officers stationed at the bridge can step in at any time to direct, and if necessary clear, traffic. On the UMass campus, Rob Hendry ’97G, coordinator of the Transportation Alternatives Program, is offering incentives to commuters to use carpooling and public transport. These include half-price parking permits for car-poolers and an “occasional parker program” with annual fees ranging from $40 for outlying lots to $500 for garage parking. UMass carpool numbers are up, Hendry says, and student cars are down. He thinks the bridge work has been a big incentive. “But I always knock on my laminated wood desk when I say things are going smoothly,” he says. Meanwhile, a park-and-ride lot is starting up at Sheldon Field near the Tri-County Fair Grounds in Northampton. Al Byam, manager of the University Transit System and the man in charge of the 40 PVTA (Pioneer Valley Transit Authority) buses that serve the five colleges, plans an express bus from there to campus. SO FAR, SO GOOD, MOST commuters are saying. UMass publications editor Helen Wise, who’s been coming to campus from Northampton every weekday for more than 20 years, says traffic is generally no worse, and sometimes better, since the bridge work began. She attributes the lack of glitches to the presence of police and the fact that a traffic-snarling turn onto Cemetery Road in Hadley is no longer permitted. Some people have chosen to take a longer, formerly less traveled road to Northampton by way of the next bridge north, but highway work in the center of Sunderland has made for traffic jams there too. “I never had to wait to go over the 116 bridge until they announced that people should use it as an alternate route,” says Linda Cahillane, class notes editor for UMass Magazine and a regular commuter from Hatfield. Speaking of alternatives, professor of German and Northampton resident, Barton Byg, is delighted that some PVTA buses now have bike racks. He rides his bike to Smith College and takes the bus from there, and likes being able to read or grade papers in transit. He is frustrated, though, that the final section of the bike path to UMass is still waiting to be finished. Byg sees “a lot of silliness” in general in money spent on highway improvements. His plea is for something more radical – a regional “anti-sprawl force” that would “help get us away from the car culture.” Not any time soon, it seems. Doug Cope, public affairs director for MassHighway, says a wider Coolidge Bridge is only part of what’s in store for Route 9. Land has already been taken in Hadley to make a four-lane highway to connect with the four-lane bridge, although the efforts of residents have reduced the amount of the historic common that will be lost. And beyond that, state highway commissioner Matthew J. Amorello has appointed a task force, of which UMass chancellor Marcellette Williams is a member, to revisit the perennial possibility of a second bridge across the river in the vicinity.

[top of page]

Truth, reconciliation, action

TRUTH: larger image

COMMENCEMENT 2001: a catchup

IN A HEARTBEAT: a faculty response to September 11

LOSSES, RESPONSES: ten alumni lost; six alums' response

RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY: Coolidge Bridge project underway

RECONSTRUCTIVE: larger image

HIGHLIGHTS: rich fish - sounds grotty, but pogy oil’s good for you

Fish: larger image

Damp distinctions: water polo fourth in U.S., shower research scores Ig Nobel

Damp distinctions: larger image

Usefulness U: the Translation Center

Plus: Acid rain update, UMass bragging rights, and the soles of insects