Tobin Bridge Steel Repairs, Chelsea Approach

The Maurice J. Tobin Memorial Bridge has carried Route 1 over the Mystic River on two decks, three lanes each way, since 1950. MassDOT's contract with the Liberty-SPS Joint Venture strips and repaints the Chelsea approach and repairs its steel and concrete while the bridge stays open. Atlantic Bridge & Engineering is the structural steel repair subcontractor. It is our second Tobin contract, after the structural and curb-plate repairs we completed for MassDOT between 2022 and 2025.

Across three construction seasons, April to November in 2024, 2025 and 2026, ABE crews field-measure each repair location, then furnish and install the replacement steel: cross-beam and steel-bent repairs, cross-girder flange, web and stiffener plates, floorbeam and stringer repairs, connection angles, bracing connections and knee braces, about 70 tons of repair steel in all. The contract also renews the safety walks with new front-edge members, gutter angles, deflector plates and diamond plate, more than 11,000 linear feet of each, plus 100 replacement scuppers and downspouts and some 30 fatigue-type rail repairs. The work is staged from night lane closures and from the structure itself, above the Chelsea street grid, the river and the Route 1 traffic below.