Left to right: State Senator Don Humason, Jr., State Representative John Velis, and City Advancement Officer Joe Mitchell assist in cutting the ceremonial ribbon on Pochassic Street Bridge Friday (Photo by Peter Francis)
WESTFIELD – After four long years, the Pochassic Street bridge reopened Friday amid cheers from residents and city officials alike.
The long awaited $2.9 million project will reconnect the Prospect Hill neighborhood with Elm Street, meaning residents of the Prospect Hill neighborhood will no longer have to use Montgomery and Notre Dame Streets to get into town.
Traffic flows up Drugstore Hill to the newly reopened Pochassic Street bridge Friday afternoon. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
“It was in January 2010, right after the Mayor had been sworn in,” said State Senator Don Humason, Jr. (R-Westfield) of the bridge’s closing, mere days after the start of the Daniel M. Knapik administration. “The Department of Transportation came in and said ‘We got some bad news – we’ve got to close the bridge. We can’t downgrade it, we can’t weight limit it, we’ve just got to close it altogether.'”
Humason said that city officials and legislators had hoped the bridge might be included in the Great River Bridge Project, but that the state had told them no and added that, had the Pochassic Bridge been a part of that project, it would have been completed long before today.
“It took us awhile to convince several DOT secretaries to expedite the project,” he said. “We walked physically a couple of different secretaries up here to view the site and finally R. Bates and Sons was selected two years ago as the contractor, and they did yeoman’s work trying to get this thing open quickly.”
City Engineer Mark Cressotti was on hand for the ribbon-cutting and said that, as a resident of the neighborhood, he has additional cause for excitement, even if it will take some getting used to.
Traffic crosses the newly reopened Pochassic Street bridge Friday afternoon. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
“It’s important for the city. It’s one of only two connectors to a good sized residential neighborhood and it’s been a long time coming,” he said. “It’s significant for Mayor Knapik – it was closed a week after he took office – and I’m sure he feels really good seeing it open. It did take a long time, but things do take time.”
City Advancement Officer Joe Mitchell called the bridge reopening a “great day for Westfield.”
A temporary pedestrian walkway was installed at the Pochassic Street Bridge as contractors renovated the structure in 2013. The state Department of Transportation closed the bridge in 2010 after inspectors found it unsafe. The $2.7 million project was awarded to R. Bates & Sons of Clinton. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
“It’s the completion of a very long project,” he said. “Important measures were taken in the interest of safety. The job is complete while also preserving some important historic aspects to this bridge.”
“We first worked on the historic arch while the permitting was being approved for working over the railroad,” said Joe Spinelli, owner of R. Bates and Sons. “We got the final approval for the railroad somewhere in February 2013, and started demolition in March. We erected a temporary pedestrian bypass to get people safely over the tracks.”
Contractors renovating the bridge on Old Pochassic Road in November of 2012. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
“So here we are, 14 months later, not too bad for working over the railroad and a real tough winter that we fought through,” he said. “There’s a lot of utilities that cross this bridge – we had to build a temporary bridge for the Verizon conduits and wires that went across. There was a lot of communication between the gas company and city water. We pushed as hard as we could since the weather broke.”
State Representative John Velis (D-Westfield) joined in on the ribbon cutting, and while not in office when the project began, recognizes what the project’s completion means to residents.
“It’s great. It’s convenient for them (Prospect Hill residents), not to mention for all the businesses around here,” he said, stating he’s heard from business owners that the bridge closure was impacting them. “It’s a great day for the city and the people of Ward 1, and it keeps and preserves a lot of historical aspects, too.”
Business owners in the general vicinity are equally enthused about the reopening.
“It’s going to give exposure for our business that we once lacked,” said Donna Shibley, owner of Pilgrim Candles on Union Avenue. “It’s going to alleviate a lot of traffic that has been caused by this bridge being closed.”
“It affected a lot of us. We’re celebrating our 60th year, and I looked at the closing as a wonderful thing, actually,” said Mike Tierney, owner of Tierney Insurance of North Elm Street. “The worst thing that could’ve happened is if nothing happened, and we lived with the same thing forever and ever. To have this happen in my lifetime is exciting.”
