The Worcester-Shrewsbury Bridge

Should Worcester style-up the gateway bridge with Shrewsbury, causing taxpayers to pay millions more for a signature bridge?
Aesthetic beauty gives life to the mundane. Design can reflect creativity and much of the best expression of the human soul. Spending money to breathe life into the staid sounds good. Boston did it. The Lenny Zakim-Bunker Hill Bridge is fabulous. It was intended to be the show piece of Boston - to plant a flag of identity, glamour and distinctiveness.
Yet, in the end, the bridge barely left an impact.
There is another bridge in Boston, the Mass Avenue Bridge that connects to vital signs of life. It goes from Cambridge and MIT to Boston and the Newbury/Boylston Street, Commonwealth Ave, Kenmore Square area.
The bridge looks a lot like the one the state is suggesting for Worcester-Shrewsbury; wide, flat and including biking and walking paths. You know what is inspiring about the Mass Ave bridge’s architecture… nothing. You know what’s special about the bridge, the two areas it connects, or more specifically, the types of people who live, work, study, shop, eat, drink, and think on both sides of the bridge. That’s what makes the place special, not how the bridge looks.
Guys love edifices: buildings, bridges, big grand stuff. We love looking at them, building them, (including the mostly union guys who often build them), seeing them built, gazing at the building when completed. But as we can see in Worcester with all our government constructed buildings and streets over the past 25 years, it’s not buildings which make a city, it’s people.
We need to build-up people more and structures less. We need more money for education, pre-school, after and summer school, job training, and tax credits for employers who will create jobs at a living (not minimum) wage. We need these “soft” programs to develop more people with ideas in their heads and money in their pockets.
Both before and after the building of Boston’s Zakim Bridge, Boston’s identity is and has always been about one main thing: The American Revolution. Revolution is what we should shoot for in Worcester. We should rock the boat of American priorities. When we have residents who say we don’t need such a fancy bridge because there are other people in the state and country who need the infrastructure money more than we need a fancy bridge; when we say we need to invest more in people and less in structures, when we have politicians say my primary role is not bringing home the bacon to my constituents, then we will lead the revolution. Then we will have accomplished something that makes us special. Then we will lead.
Instead of the $45 million extra dollars it may take for a fancier bridge, why don’t we put an arch for $45,000 over the city of Worcester’s side of the bridge with a sculpted pineapple on the top of the arch, the traditional sign of New England welcome, showing our playfulness and hospitality to all whom we welcome to Worcester. This is the bridge to others we should offer.


This is Randy Feldman on WCRN’s Midday Report July 26, 2011 830 AM.