Asked at a community meeting if Massachusetts is considering replacing the Tobin Bridge with a tunnel, the project manager leading planning studies responded Wednesday that it wasn’t out of the question.
A working group is only two months into an 18-month study to examine options to succeed the 74-year-old bridge that connects Chelsea and Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood, and serves as a lifeline between Boston and the area north of the capital city.
The eventual project is all but certain to be enormously disruptive, given the tens of thousands of vehicles — 87,000 per typical weekday last year — that rely on the bridge that carries Route 1 over the Mystic River. But changes are also years away: the planning study alone will not be complete until the summer of 2026…