random thoughts – Day 1,573 – (Monday) – bridged

In July 2019, the state conducted an inspection of the two-lane bridge on Beaver Street at Beaver Brook. The bridge was closed to vehicular traffic a few days later on July 29. The initial reports said the project was already on the spring 2020 project list, and the duration of the work was unknown.

For nearly five full years, the bridge has been closed and my quickest route out of the neighborhood and especially to work (and to avoid UMASS traffic) was gone. Detoured. Out of commission. For five years, the route to and from home and many places I go has required driving into Dracut and looping back into Lowell. Dracut isn’t that far, really, as my street is close to the town line, but still.

It hasn’t been all bad. Driving on Lakeview allowed me to know the location of the jeweler for when I needed my work five-year anniversary gift watch band adjusted in 2021. Sitting at countless red lights waiting to turn onto Lakeview let me notice the physical therapy office where I became a patient for $600 of out-of-pocket co-payments in the summer of 2023. The detour allowed me to discover the “Coming Soon” and then newly opened in May 2024 Seoul Bunsik shop where I get my kim bap fix every couple weeks.

About to cross the newly opened bridge.

Today, the bridge reopened. The detour and road closed signs are covered over. I saw the news on Facebook four hours after the fact, as I was sitting on my deck enjoying the 8:00 light. I hustled my arse out of my deck chair, grabbed the keys and wallet (the phone was already in my hand), and took a ride over the bridge to verify it was open. I stopped the car to take pictures. 

After a right turn onto Lakeview, a u-turn in a parking lot, and a left back onto Beaver Street, I went over the bridge again. It was glorious.

I stopped the car and got out of the car after the second crossing to look for the footpath that runs along the brook to my street and to take some photos. The footpath is overgrown, and the sidewalks were closed off, so I couldn’t really get a shot of the brook. They are supposed to be worked on in August according to info I found online.

A shirtless man stood on the porch of a house next to the bridge taking in mail, and I was ready to celebrate the bridge opening, but he went inside before I could be the wacko weird lady yapping excitedly about the bridge. After five years of living next to an uncrossable bridge, the residents of the immediate area are certainly more over the moon thrilled than I am. How could they not be?

It might take a while to reprogram the five-year autopilot to and from work. There is a culvert project beginning on Lakeview this week which will mess up the traffic flow all over again, so it could be a while for the new regular flow of things to sort itself out. Then school will start again and it will be all crazy all over again. Traffic and road projects and school buses and trash trucks sure do make things interesting.