DPW Head Advocates Third Canal Bridge
From The Enterprise Newspapers, August 10, 1965
A third bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, long talked of by those caught in summer traffic jams, is now being advocated by the state Department of Public Works. The Army Corps of Engineers has been asked by Commissioner Francis W. Sargent what plans now exist for an additional crossing. Mr. Sargent said that present bridges are inadequate, and that the situation will get worse.
In a letter to Brig. Gen. R. R. Ploger, division engineer in Waltham, Mr. Sargent suggested that if the Army Engineers have no plans underway that “we jointly explore the possibility of a third bridge, with proper approaches and connectors on both sides of the Canal, midway between the two present bridges—or the possibility of an additional bridge close to the present Sagamore structure. In the latter case, each structure could then become one-way.”
The commissioner said that all pertinent DPW engineering data and traffic studies would be placed at the disposal of the Corps.
“Despite temporary relief measures,” Commissioner Sargent said, “both on the part of the Corps of Engineers and the DPW, all forecasts for the future indicate that the years just ahead will see a greatly expanded traffic between Cape Cod and the mainland.”
He said that just as the new Route 3 freeway from Boston has resulted in greatly increased traffic, especially to the Sagamore Bridge, so the freeway relocation of Route 28, designated Route 25, would attract thousands more motor vehicles each day to the Bourne Bridge. Construction of Route 25 is now underway between Middleborough and Wareham.
“When Route 6 is reconstructed as a freeway from New Bedford to Wareham, as an extension of Interstate Route 195 from Rhode Island, a whole new avenue will open up for tourist travel from west and south,” the commissioner continued.
“These new tourists, bound for the Cape, many of them drawn to the new National Seashore, will have to squeeze through the already restricted bottlenecks at Bourne and Sagamore.”
