Councillor Merkl and I have drafted the below letter and are sharing with those impacted by the most recent Commerical St flooding instances.
After the historical flooding this month, we wanted to reach out to the impacted parties and share our concern and requests for an update from State leadership.
A Mass DOT onsite visit was organized this past May where engineers from Mass DOT spoke with Mr Rossi from O’Rourke Bros Memorials, and others from The City of Salem. The urgency of the flooding in the area, as well as the connecting issues such as Peabody flood mitigation work, the Bridge Street roadway project and the need for a second point of egress from Commerical St were also discussed.
In response to our meeting last May, attached is the scoping presentation provided by MassDOT that covers some of the existing conditions, considerations and issues with this area.
Follow-up this past week with State Rep Many Cruz provided the below update from Mass DOT regarding the North St bridge over the North River project:
MassDOT is still in the investigative stage around this project. To directly quote the MASSDOT officials spoken to:
Our staff still has to vet out some concepts and options that may be worthwhile pursuing, but the takeaway is that there is at least 9 months of investigative work that the designer needs to undertake i.e., survey, traffic, hydraulics, bridge type etc.
We are still ~7-9 months out from a new update while the investigative work is being completed, but we have gained confirmed involvement and support of Senator Joan Lovely, Rep Many Cruz and Mayor Pangallo on moving forward towards a solution.
Provided below is a list of contact information for you if you are interested in vocalizing your support for this project to move forward in urgency, just as we are doing:
- Senator Joan Lovely; Joan.lovely@masenate.gov; senatorjoanlovely.com
- Rep Many Cruz; Manny.Cruz@mahouse.gov
- Mayor Dominick Pangallo; dpangallo@salem.com
We will continue to work to keep you posted on this project, as well as vocalizing our support. We realize how devastating the last two weeks have been and will keep doing everything we can to keep moving forward in finding solutions.
There are currently two active projects with MassDOT related to the Commercial St area, with frustratingly little updates:
- Project No. 605332: Bridge Replacement (St 114) North St over North River (Link)
- Project No 5399: Reconstruction Bridge St, from Flint St to Washington St (Link)
Sincerely,
Councillor Alice Merkl
978-621-9693
AMerkl@Salem.com
Councillor Megan Stott
781-486-3525
MStott@Salem.com