This article was written with the help of news accounts, government publications, and the gracious assistance of Richard Williamson, a member of the Board of the Bruce Freeman group.

by Eli Post

An Impressive Bridge

Those of you that regularly travel on Route 2 in Concord have witnessed a remarkable construction project. It is one of the longest rail-trail bridges in the country and connects dozens of towns so that you can travel 25 miles (50 miles round trip) and that distance will increase as more segments of the Bruce Freeman trail are completed.

Let’s start with a bit of history.

Back in the 1870’s when the Framingham/Lowell railroad  was being designed and constructed, the railroad engineers had to figure out how to bring the railroad across one of the major highways, in particular, Route 2.  The obvious solution was to construct an at-grade crossing and supply a traffic signal.  That solution worked for about a century.

However by the 1970’s, traffic on Route 2 increased by a large factor and an at-grade crossing was no longer going to be acceptable.  A conductor swinging a lantern to lead freight cars across the highway was a very poor solution.  The obvious good solution was to build a bridge.  Obvious, but not straightforward.  The Mass. Department of Transportation MASSDOT had a host of problems to deal with including an ongoing traffic mess on Route 2 at the nearby rotary in front of the Concord prison.  On top of that, a proposal to construct a rail trail (the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail) was moving along in the planning process and the BFRT would cross Route 2 just west of the rotary.  The MASSDOT folks decided to tackle the situation head on by totally redesigning the rotary and including the BFRT crossing in the overall design.  After lots of planning and traffic  modeling, the whole complicated thing was shelved, including the BFRT crossing.

By 1980, the BFRT had been largely designed, cleared, funded, permitted, constructed etc. from the south all the way north to a point just south of the Route 2 crossing in Concord.  A similar story applied to the BFRT coming from the north through Acton.  The dilemma to connect didn’t go away.  How do you bring the BFRT across Route 2?  On a bridge, of course, but not so simple.  The original 1870’s alignment of the rail bed crossed Route 2 at the shallow angle of about 30 degrees.  A little trigonometry tells us that the bridge would have to be about twice as long as it would otherwise have to be if it were to cross perpendicular.  

Nevertheless, good luck and good fortune prevailed, and by fall 2022, the bridge was done.  In spring 2023, the only remaining tasks are finishing the approaches. You may be able to ride across the bridge by the time you read this. As in any large construction project, there were technical problems to overcome. We share one with you. In Acton, the MA State Police horse farm sits alongside the west side of the BFRT.  In fact, the farm's pasture overlaps the BFRT right of way.   No one wanted to see collisions between cyclists and grass-munching horses!   So the pasture's east-side fence had to be moved a short distance to the west.

You can enjoy a long ride on a traffic-free Bruce Freeman bike path starting in Chelmsford at the northern end or Acton at the southern end. Or park by the prison and take a joy ride over the bridge. In any case make sure you enjoy a remarkable edition to our biking opportunities.