Auburndale's Way to Riverside Park Now Crosses the Charles Twice

The walk from the end of Charles Street to Riverside Park is open again. The rebuilt Lasell Boathouse Bridge is carrying people across the Charles after roughly five years when no legal walking route covered this short stretch of Auburndale. The loop that came back is not the old direct route, though. You reach the park by crossing the river into Weston and come home by crossing it a second time, because the passage that once ran straight under the commuter rail tracks is still closed.

That shape matters well beyond one footbridge. The two river crossings now carry the whole Auburndale end of the Riverside Greenway, and every connection still being planned in this corner of Newton starts from them.

Two Closures, Three Years Apart

The Riverside Greenway is a planned walking route. It runs from Auburndale Park at Commonwealth Avenue to the Lower Falls Pedestrian Bridge over the Charles. To get from one end to the other, it has to deal with three obstacles: the Mass Pike, the Charles River and the MBTA commuter rail tracks. The first is easy. Charles Street already passes under the Pike in a tunnel. The other two caused the trouble.

According to Newton Conservators, the old Depot Tunnel started at the end of Charles Street and ran under the commuter tracks. It was the best way south until the MBTA closed it as a safety hazard around 2017 because it was crumbling.

Why the Bridge Closure Cut Off the Whole Walk

After the tunnel closed, the Boathouse Bridge became the only legal way through. Walkers crossed the river on it, followed a trail beside an MWRA pumping station, then took an old road under the railroad tracks to reach Riverside Park. The MWRA had paved and landscaped a path through its deep rock tunnel access site, where a major water main broke in 2010, and that path links Riverside Park to the Boathouse Bridge. From the park, the route crossed back over the Pony Truss Bridge and headed south on the Pony Truss Trail.

So when the Boathouse Bridge closed around 2020, there was no backup route left. Newton Conservators put it bluntly: the only way through this stretch of the Riverside Greenway was a "hazardous and illegal crossing of the MBTA tracks."

The bridge came back because of a much larger highway project. The Conservators report that the pedestrian bridge was replaced as part of MassDOT's work to rebuild or replace the eight highway bridges at the interchange where I-90 meets I-95. A construction photo the group posted from February 2024 looks downstream toward that interchange, with the tan Lasell Boathouse at the right and a highway crane behind it. By December 2024 the new bridge's structure was complete. The Conservators' Blue Heron Trail page, updated in September 2026, lists the Boathouse Bridge near the Leo J. Martin Golf Course as "rebuilt in 2025."

The Loop as It Runs Now

Fig City News carried the Conservators' announcement of a guided walk on this loop for October 31. It described the "newly upgraded Riverside Park area" and the "recently reopened Lasell Boathouse Bridge." Tod Cochran of the Riverside Greenway Working Group was set to lead the walk, which had been moved from September 27. Registration was capped at 30 people. The route described in that listing is about 1.5 miles:

1. Start at the end of Charles Street in Auburndale. The closest address is 107 Charles Street, and there is parking at the street's end.
2. Cross the Charles into Weston on the Lasell Boathouse Bridge.
3. Continue along the Weston side to the Pony Truss Bridge.
4. Cross back into Newton and follow the Pony Truss Trail.
5. Loop back to the Charles Street parking area.

The listing says most of the walk is flat and paved. The Pony Truss Trail is the exception: natural and narrow. That surface change is the one to plan around if you walk with a stroller or after heavy rain. The rest of the loop is easy going.

The two bridges are from different eras. The Pony Truss Bridge upstream opened in 2013 after the Accelerated Bridge Program funded replacement of the area's decaying river crossings. The Boathouse Bridge downstream is the newest piece. The Pony Truss Trail between them was rebuilt in September 2020, which means it was finished just as the Boathouse Bridge closed, and for most of its life so far it could not be reached on foot as part of a loop.

The Highway Work Next Door Is Still Underway

The bridge is done, but the project that paid for it is not. MassDOT describes the Newton-Weston program as eight bridges: five replacements, one rehabilitation and two superstructure replacements. Its overview page estimated that construction would start in spring 2024 and run 4.5 years. That points to roughly 2028, but MassDOT gave it as a baseline estimate, not a fixed finish date.

The contractor's recent updates show where the work stands. In July 2026, the three bridges carrying Ramp G were substantially complete and traffic had moved onto the new structures, with the old ramp bridges still to be torn down. The September 2026 update reported that westbound I-90 had moved onto its new bridge, which opened the third and final phase of mainline bridge demolition and construction. Pile driving, concrete substructure work and I-90 noise-wall construction were listed for this fall.

For anyone on the loop this month, that means construction sounds downstream, and probably pile driving, while the walking route itself stays open. None of the contractor's updates list a closure of the Charles Street path or the Riverside path.

The Pieces That Would Change the Walk Next

The loop crosses the river twice because Newton's side of the tracks has no direct connection yet. Each project still pending would add or restore one:

• Depot Tunnel. This is the short, straight route from Charles Street under the commuter rail. The MBTA closed it around 2017, and the Conservators' December 2024 account of the Greenway still described it as closed.
• Pigeon Hill Trail. The City of Newton's project page calls it one of three key Auburndale links. The funded work is design, taking it to 100 percent "shovel ready," with $212,000 in total from the Community Preservation Act, DCR Recreational Trails, MassTrails and the Solomon Foundation, to prepare it for future construction.
• Two Bridges Trail. South of the Pony Truss Trail, the Blue Heron Trail would cross I-95 on two abandoned railroad bridges planned for restoration under this name. The Riverside Greenway Working Group describes a 1,600-foot connection from Lower Falls to Riverside Station and says Mark Development agreed to fund 100 percent of the design.

All three would build onto the reopened loop. The Working Group's overall plan is a network of shared-use, accessible and foot trails running from the Blue Heron Trail at Lyon's Field to the Lower Falls "Trestle" Bridge. The Blue Heron Trail itself follows the Charles from Watertown Square around Newton's northern and western edges to Cutler Park and Millennium Park. Until one of these links is built, the Boathouse Bridge and the Pony Truss Bridge are the only route between Auburndale and that larger network.

For updates, check the Newton Conservators guided walk calendar and the Riverside Greenway Working Group's site. Those two will be among the first places to post when a link moves from design to construction.

How close a home is to these trail links is the kind of detail that rarely shows up in a listing, but it shapes how a house in Auburndale is lived in. If you own near Charles Street or the river and want to know how that access fits into your home's value, Colin Bayley and the Bayley & Natoli team can put it into a clear plan. Request a Home Valuation & Market Plan.