We’ve been asking you how the issues with the Washington Bridge have impacted your life, as part of our ongoing community-centered project, Breaking Point. One of the people we’ve heard from is Cranston resident Lily Jeznach, a 36-year-old professor of environmental engineering at Roger Williams University. She says she’s concerned about the environmental impacts of the increased traffic – but she’s also found some positive ways to cope with the longer commute.
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I use the Washington Bridge personally on my drive to work twice. I cross the bridge in the morning and then I come back in the evening. But occasionally my family has to go over to that side of the bridge as well. Our pediatrician’s over there. We have friends who live over there. I also play in an orchestra over in Fall River, so I have to drive over the bridge to Fall River and back in the evenings. So we’re frequently crossing the bridge.
The extra commuting time has, you know, probably added on about four hours of extra driving a week, I would say, just adding up the five days, 4-5 days that I typically drive from the West Bay over to the East Bay. You know, so that’s less time with my kids. That’s less time at work as well, when I’m trying to rush out the door from a work obligation to try and make it back to pick up the kids at daycare or at school.
At one point, there was a ferry going and I really liked the idea of having the ferry. I can see the Mount Hope Bridge from where I live, basically on the water over in the Pawtuxet Village area in Cranston, and driving to the ferry or biking to the ferry as possible. And then the ferry drops off in like downtown Bristol, which is maybe a mile from campus, which isn’t easy, you know, bike ride or a longer walk. But I really appreciated the ferry when it was. Being used, and then I took advantage of that, but it didn’t last very long.
That’s what kills me is the environmental impacts of all these people just sitting in traffic daily, in an already heavily polluted area within the state. We have all the. All of the polluters in the Providence area, negatively, I impacting the Providence communities and the South Providence communities with poor air pollution on a daily basis, and to have an increased traffic load, just sitting all the time, day in and day out, is definitely contributing to, you know, carbon dioxide emissions in the area during the commuting times.
It doesn’t make me very happy to sit in my, you know, gas-powered car to sit in traffic and and continue to pollute either, even though I drive a pretty fuel-efficient car. But yeah, I definitely think about that and the environmental impacts on the water, too. There’s been some of the demolition work that has fallen into the river right there.
And I know that people were worried, Save the Bay and others, about the disturbances to the sediments that have some potentially polluted, um, polluted sediments that get disturbed and that can negatively impact water quality downstream.
Rhode Island’s infrastructure, particularly our bridges, are not in great shape according to the national reports. They’re some of the worst in the country. And I, you know, I feel like I pay a lot of tax money, and I would love to see more money invested in improving the infrastructure and improving the public transportation in the state in general, to improve sustainability and also just to improve, you know, the way that people are, are getting around on a day-to day to day basis with the roadways. I know I travel over the Mount Hope Bridge frequently as well, and that’s one that way scares me a little bit, going over it. But, you know, if the Washington Bridge is in this kind of condition, what are the, what’s the condition of the other bridges in the state as well?
I would love to see more electric, electric fleet of pub public transportation. I think you go to some cities, you know, Boston’s one example, and people who live in Boston just take public transportation everywhere. You know, it’s pretty reliable. Well, for the most part. And the culture is that you use it, that you use the T to get around and you use the bus system to get around. And that’s not really the culture here.
One of the positives that I’ve gained from this whole experience is I listen to a lot of podcasts and books on tape on my drive, and I try to, you know, if I’m going to be in the car anyway, I listen to a lot of NPR shows. I listen to a lot of PBS shows. And yeah, I try to make the experience at least a learning one, so that I can, you know, use the time and keep learning something new or something different, listen to music.
Tonight I’m going to be over on the East Bay in Bristol during the day, and then I have an orchestra rehearsal later on tonight. And instead of driving home and back over, you know, across the bridge back and forth, I’m going to meet up with some friends and we’ll have some dinner and then I won’t have to make the drive back and forth. So I’ll try to touch base with friends and see some friends.
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This story is part of Breaking Point: The Washington Bridge, a community-centered project from Rhode Island PBS and The Public’s Radio.
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