You can calculate Quincy’s fight to keep Boston from rebuilding the Long Island Bridge in years, or you can count the lives lost to the drug crisis exacerbated by the delay.
The bridge closed in 2014 after being deemed unsafe and was demolished in 2015, cutting off access to drug rehabilitation facilities on the island. Then-Mayor Marty Walsh first proposed a rebuild in 2018.
As the Herald reported in 2019, “The opioid crisis we’re living goes beyond city lines, and we welcome everyone’s support as we take action to help those suffering find their path to a better life. The Long Island Bridge carried the weight of those in need for more than 60 years and it’s our hope that the island will once again serve as the sanctuary it’s meant to be,” Walsh said.
Quincy fought it every step of the way, delaying the project.
Imagine if the plan to rebuild the bridge had gone through back then. Even allowing for a few years for construction and fixing up the facilities on the island, we would have been there by now, if not sooner.
In the ensuing years marked by Quincy’s battles to keep the bridge from being rebuilt over issues ranging from traffic congestion to cost and environmental impact, fentanyl entered the scene.
The opioid crisis just got worse.
As the Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported earlier this year, there was a 7% increase in fatal overdoses in Boston last year, with fentanyl playing a key role in the deaths.
The death toll for 2022: 352 people, up from 330 in 2021.
From 2019 to 2022, Boston saw a 36% increase in opioid-related deaths, more than twice the statewide rate of increase, at 16% for the same time period. Again, fentanyl was the smoking gun.
In addition to the fatalities, there are the addicts brought back from the brink of death by Narcan, the sons and daughters trapped in the downward spiral of drug addiction, the families torn apart, the needles discarded where children play, the heartbreak of humanity reduced to zombie-like stupor swaying in the street.
How many could have been saved by a functional link to rehabilitation on Long Island?
If the ball had been in play without interference as the fentanyl scourge was in its early years, it’s highly doubtful we’d be where we are now, with Mayor Michelle Wu recently saying of Mass and Cass “In the last month or so, especially in the last couple of weeks, it has gotten to a new level of public safety alarm.”
.Boston is far from the only community battling strong headwinds in the attempt to connect the addicted with drug rehabilitation facilities. The Not In My Backyard position is a default in many cities and towns around the country, and the opioid crisis only gets worse.
Last week, Wu said a new state permit will allow the city to move forward with its bridge-building plan. Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch responded: “I have said from day one that the city of Quincy was going to do everything in its power to keep the city of Boston from building that bridge.”
Koch’s legal team is preparing an appeal. How long will that delay the project?
Just count the body bags.
