Safety Zone; Charles River, Boston, MA.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0365]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zone; Charles River, Boston, MA.</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is proposing to establish a safety zone on the navigable waters of the Charles River, in Boston, Massachusetts. This safety zone would protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards associated with a bridge replacement project that is expected to last approximately eight years. During periods when it is subject to enforcement, this rule would prohibit unauthorized vessels and individuals from entering the safety zone without permission from Sector Boston's Captain of the Port, or a designated representative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before October 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0365 using the Federal Docket Management System at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for further instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this proposed rulemaking, call, or email Mr. Timothy Chase, Sector Boston Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 617-447-1620, email <E T="03">Timothy.W.Chase@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">BNM Broadcast Notice to Mariners</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COTP Captain of the Port, Sector Boston</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FTA Federal Transit Administration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">LNM Local Notice to Mariners</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">MA Massachusetts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">MBTA Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) will be replacing the North Station Draw One Bridge over the Charles River in Boston, MA. As described on an MBTA North Station Drawbridge Replacement website, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> the project includes the replacement of a control tower, the extension of the bridge platform to include four to six additional river-crossing bridge tracks, the connection of tracks 11 and 12 to the existing network, and upgrades to track, signal, communications, and infrastructure. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the MBTA have prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) under the National Environmental Policy Act and, on January 16, 2025, the FTA issued a FONSI (Finding of No Significant Impact) for the project. The EA and FONSI are available at the MBTA website provided in footnote 1 of this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">https://www.mbta.com/projects/north-station-drawbridge-replacement.</E> </FTNT> On April 22, 2025, the MBTA held a meeting with the Coast Guard to present its construction plan for the demolition and replacement of the superstructure and substructures of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge spans and approach spans over the Charles River, Boston, Massachusetts (MA). North Station is a major commuter and intercity rail terminal in Boston, MA, which is served by four MBTA commuter lines and the Amtrak Downeaster. Due to the complex construction staging required to maintain service levels at North Station, the MBTA anticipates that construction and demolition activities for the project, which may begin as early as January 1, 2026, may take up to eight years to complete. Construction activities may occur up to seven days a week, with primary work shifts scheduled during the daytime from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nighttime work may also take place during certain phases, between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m., and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. In-river construction and demolition will involve removing eleven caissons that previously supported the former Draw One Bridge piers. Two cofferdams may be installed to facilitate this work. One cofferdam, approximately 98 feet by 58 feet—would encapsulate eight caissons on the north side of the channel, while the second, approximately 104 feet by 27 feet, would surround the “main deck beam pier” and three associated caissons on the south side. Cofferdam installation would be conducted from a barge, prior to the construction of temporary work trestles. Silt curtains or similar sediment control measures would be used around the cofferdams during their removal, as needed. Temporary work trestles, potentially in place for up to six years, would be constructed following cofferdam installation. Construction work would begin concurrently at multiple locations, starting with pile driving for the trestles using barge-mounted equipment. Drilled shaft construction for the lift span piers may also proceed simultaneously, using similar barge-based methods. Multiple barges are anticipated for various construction functions, including supporting cranes, storing materials, and facilitating material delivery. Dredging is also expected within the project area. Demolition of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge will likely involve cutting the steel trusses into sections, which would then be lifted by crane and floated out by barge. Approximately 1,380 timber piles, along with the majority of construction and demolition debris, will also be removed by barge. The Coast Guard has coordinated with the MBTA to assess whether the project can proceed without requiring channel closures and to understand the potential impact on the project timeline. Fortunately, most construction activities will not necessitate enforcement of the safety zone or waterway closures. Certain critical tasks that must be performed within the channel will, however, require enforcement of the safety zone, effectively closing the waterway during those periods. The extremely complex marine construction and demolition activities described above present many hazardous conditions, including pile driving operations, heavy lift operations, overhead cutting operations, potential falling debris, increased construction vessel traffic, and stationary vessels and barges operating in close proximity to the bridge and to each other. These construction and demolition activities are expected to impact navigation on the Charles River within a 100-yard radius of the center point of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge. Based on these circumstances, the COTP, Sector Boston has determined that establishment of a safety zone through rulemaking is warranted to ensure the safety of life, property, and the environment on the Charles River within a 100-yard radius of the center point of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge during construction and demolition operations. The Coast Guard is proposing this rule under the authority provided in 46 U.S.C. 70034. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP, Sector Boston proposes to establish a safety zone on the Charles River, in Boston, MA, within 100-yards of the center point of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge, (approximate position 42°22′08.5″ N 71°03′55.0″ W expressed in Degrees (°) Minutes (′) Seconds (″) (DMS) based on North American Datum 1983 (NAD 83)), effective from January 1, 2026, through the completion of the project. The project is expected to take up to eight years to complete. We will remove the regulation when the project is completed, and the safety zone is no longer needed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Figure 1: Small Scale Chartlet Showing the Position of the Proposed Safety Zone</HD> <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="281"> <GID>EP02SE25.000</GID> </GPH> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Figure 2: Large Scale Chartlet Showing the Position of the Proposed Safety Zone With a 100-Yard Safety Zone</HD> <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="282"> <GID>EP02SE25.001</GID> </GPH> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Figure 3: Large Scale Ariel Picture of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge</HD> <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="256"> <GID>EP02SE25.002</GID> </GPH> This proposed rule will give the COTP, Sector Boston the authority to prohibit vessel traffic, when necessary, within 100-yards of the center point of the MBTA North Station Draw One Railroad Bridge for the safety of vessels and workers during construction and demolition work. The COTP, Sector Boston will provide notice of each enforcement period via the LNM and issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners (BNM) via marine channel 16 (VHF-FM) as soon as practicable in response to an emergency or hazardous condition. When subject to enforcement, no unauthorized vessel or person would be permitted to enter the safety zone without obtaining permission from the COTP, Sector Boston or a designated representative. Requests for entry into the safety zone would be considered and reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Persons or vessels seeking to enter the safety zone must request authorization from the COTP, Sector Boston or designated representative via VHF-F ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━