The MBTA’s Draw One project replaces the 1930-era bascule bridges that carry every north-side commuter-rail line into Boston’s North Station. The bridges span the Charles River across Cambridge, Boston and Somerville and have been the choke point limiting frequency on the Newburyport/Rockport, Haverhill, Lowell and Fitchburg lines for two decades. The replacement is a $1.06 billion design-build job awarded to Skanska USA Civil in May 2026, with substantial completion targeted for Fall 2032.

Project Scope

The contract bundles several pieces of work that have historically been bid separately.

The bridges themselves get swapped from twin double-leaf bascules to new vertical-lift spans, the standard movable-bridge form for modern rail. The crossing expands from four tracks to six, eliminating the throat that has limited North Station’s throughput regardless of how much additional terminal capacity has been built inside the station.

A new Tower A signal and control facility replaces the existing dispatch building, modernizing the entire interlocking. Approach trestles north of the river get fully rebuilt. Inside North Station, a new Platform F absorbs the expanded capacity, increasing usable platform faces by one and shortening turn times on peak-hour service.

The job is being delivered while keeping 100,000+ daily riders moving. There’s no full shutdown. Phased outages roll service onto temporary alignments while sections of the new structure are built alongside the existing bascules and swung into final position.

Why It Matters

Draw One is the single largest constraint on north-side commuter rail in Greater Boston. Doubling the track count across the Charles is a precondition for any future increase in frequency — including regional-rail-style headways — on lines that today are limited not by demand or rolling stock but by the geometry of a 96-year-old bridge.

The award is also one of the largest single MBTA contracts of the past decade. It signals a shift in MBTA capital strategy away from years of emergency slow-zone fixes toward genuine state-of-good-repair megaprojects, and it places Skanska USA Civil’s order book firmly in northeast rail through 2032. Subcontracting tiers — structural steel, signaling, marine erection — will set the regional bid market for the rest of the decade.

Project Team & Details