Thursday, 4:30 PM
Painting of Tobin begins again, like Sisyphus and his boulder
(David L Ryan/Globe Staff)
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The eternal task of painting the 2.5-mile-long Tobin Bridge began again today as crews picked up where they stopped last fall, gradually covering the girders and trusses with 23,000 gallons of green paint.
"That's enough paint for a double line from the Tobin all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco," said Richard Walsh, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the bridge.
As with the Golden Gate, painting the Tobin Bridge is a perpetual job. The current project began in 1992 and is slated to be completed in roughly four years.
For motorists in the 76,000 vehicles that traverse its span each day, painting means long-term lane closures from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. From today until November, the closures will include two outer lanes on the upper deck after the toll plaza, and on the lower deck from the Charlestown tunnel to the old toll area.
The 57-year-old Tobin is twice as long as the Brooklyn Bridge, and stretches a half-mile farther than the Golden Gate. It links Charlestown and Chelsea, spanning the same stretch of the Mystic River first regularly crossed by commuters 400 years ago aboard the Winnisimmet Ferry.
