The new Chelsea Street bridge is a work of art as far as modern engineering is concerned. It is as awesome a piece of construction we have ever known in this city in its entire modern age except for the Tobin Bridge.
The Tobin Bridge, however, has outlasted itself. It is rusting. It is heavy and old. It looks like a monster structure from the post-industrial revolution era.
The new Chelsea Street Bridge will suffer no such fate.
Its rather modern futuristic look and feel will always be modern and futuristic. It has a real design sense and one gets the feeling it will look every bit as modern 50 years from today.
This is because it was designed with utility in mind and it stands on a much wider footing and the span itself is much grander as well as its twin footings soaring high at either side of the bridge.
Gone now is the incredible inconvenience everyone using this bridge has had to endure for much longer than a year.
Traffic and all sorts of trucking commerce will again be flowing reasonably from Chelsea into East Boston and from East Boston into Chelsea.
We welcome the new Chelsea Street Bridge.
We look in awe at it.
It is a sight to behold given what came before.