While Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) officials said that while work will, sometimes, go well into the night, the construction crews will be doing their best to keep the noise down and that there will be a hot line for residents to call if the noise gets out of hand.

That’s just one of the many expected disruptions to be caused by the replacement of the bridge connecting Belgrade Avenue and Centre Street through the West Roxbury Parkway. The bridge has been designated as needing replacement since 2021, and the MassDOT has been holding meetings since last fall with residents regarding the closures and preliminary construction – https://gvimes.link/2025wrpkwy

Now, the closure is scheduled for July 20 and is expected to reopen in December. The main detour will move traffic through the intersection of Belgrade and Centre rather than the Rotary, with east/west traffic going on Belgrade to Roslindale Square, and south traffic going on Beech Street towards the West Roxbury Parkway. MassDOT Assistant Construction Engineer Chuck Labbee III said the detour is designed to keep traffic out of residential neighborhoods, and navigation companies have been notified of the detour to help keep it that way.

“We’re in communication with Google Maps and Waves, in order to specifically encourage people to stay on the detour route and not utilize the neighborhood side streets,” he said.

Labbee said for the first week of the closure, they will have police details to help move traffic along and keep drivers on the detour.

“To help mitigate the traffic for the first week while the dust settles,” he said. “We’ve also added new cameras at the Belgrade and West Roxbury Parkway intersection to help Boston Traffic better coordinate and deal with issues.”

Labbee added though that the project is renovating the bridge traffic patterns as well as its super structure, and that traffic will be “significantly better than it is today.”

For the train, Labbee said the Needham Line will be shut on weekends from Bellevue to Needham Heights, with actual demolition starting on July 24 to July 27. Labbee added that the MBTA is already shutting down this section of the line to do signal work for seven weeks out of the July-December work schedule.

“During those outages, riders are encouraged to use the existing bus lines in the area,” he said. “They’re going to be adding buses to Bus Lines 35, 36 and 37 to get the West Roxbury Roslindale commuters to Forest Hills and take the Orange Line to their destination. Further out, the Needham customers are going to be asked to use Bus 59, and that will direct them to the D Branch of the Green Line to Newton Highlands.”

The work itself is nominally scheduled to go from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with options to go until 9 p.m. and even overnight.

“There are going to be some extended shifts during the bridge outage that will go until 9 p.m., and as needed, there will be overnight work,” he said. “Those will be particularly focused on the weekend shifts when the train is out to take advantage of that as much as we can. You’re going to see nighttime work, basically 24/7, however the contractor will have noise monitors out there, and we’re required to monitor the noise, minimize disruptions, and not exceed certain thresholds at night. There will also be a 24-hour hot line for residents to call and report excessive noise.”

During the question and answer session, West Roxbury Neighborhood Council Chair Larry Costello spoke on behalf of Rose’s Bounty, the food pantry at the Stratford Street Church. The pantry opens twice a month on Saturdays and Fridays. Stratford Street connects directly to Anawan and then to the West Roxbury Parkway and its carriage way, and Costello said the traffic is directly tied to the area’s food insecurity, which is high enough for traffic to back up to Beech Street.

The plan called for one weekend in which Beech Street and then Anawan Avenue would be taking all the traffic, east/west and the north/south, for special work, and Costello said that could be even more headache for workers, residents and food pantry patrons, if that closure was scheduled on a distribution day.

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“That’s just going to clog, and with the construction going on there now (400 Belgrade Ave.) with the condos, I’m just anticipating a bad situation there,” Costello said.

Labbee said they would coordinate with the church to make sure Beech Street’s increased usage won’t fall on a pantry distribution day.

“We don’t want to see gridlock in the area so maybe we’ll get some officers there,” he said.

Resident Jeffrey Sarin said he felt a lot of cars will be cutting through the Roche Bros. parking lot for some trips. Design Engineer Jake Holman said he agreed, but said short of blocking it off, he didn’t see a way to stop that activity.

Sarin asked for a “no left turn” sign there and organizers said they’d consider it, but that got into a general discussion about using signage to stop drivers from cutting through residential streets, like making the streets legal only for local traffic. Labbee said the MassDOT’s position on restricting traffic to just abutters is a measure they have used, but only very, very sparingly.

“The DOT’s position is, I think even legally, either a road is open or it’s closed,” he said. “It’s also impossible to enforce, because we’re not going to put a police officer at the end of everyone’s streets.”

Labbee did say they would consider the no left on Lords and Ladies Way.

Resident Scott Kirschner asked about replacement trees for those they are planning to cut down. Labbee said they worked “hand-in-glove” with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation (DCR) Arborists and they found that many trees they had to remove were dying anyway, but added that they will be adding new trees to replace those cut down.

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