Mount Washington Bridge Restoration Causes Wine and Jazz Festival To Be Cancelled
The Baltimore Messenger is reporting that the Mt. Washington Village merchants association has decided to cancel this year’s popular Wine and Jazz Festival, previously scheduled for September 26th, so that Baltimore City can replace the Newbury Street bridge before the winder holiday season.
The merchants were faced with an unfortunate dilemma: cancel the festival so that the City can be sure to complete the project by the winter or delay the construction and risk the project interfering with holiday shopping in December.
It sounds as if the City was willing to be flexible about the timing and duration of the project and presented several options – including scheduling the project to begin after the festival and compressing it to just two weeks by closing the bridge during construction. However, despite the City offering the option, the project engineer was doubtful that the two-week schedule was feasible. In addition, having the bridge closed for any amount of time would be severely detrimental to area businesses.
Therefore, the majority of the merchants felt that the best option was to keep the bridge open during construction and scheduling it for the fall so that the construction would not interfere with winter holiday shopping.
According to the Messenger:
By skipping the fall festival, merchants ensure that the city starts the expected 75-day bridge project in July, in hopes of finishing it in October. The city plans to replace the Newbury Street Bridge over the Western Run at Smith Avenue in two stages so that motorists and pedestrians can use the bridge during construction.
Photo: enicky0680
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