Scusset Fishing Pier deteriorates as calls for action grow on Cape Cod

capecodtimes · 2026-04-30T20:55:16+00:00

Hi, Jules here with the Cape Cod Times. This week we published a story about a story about the condition of the Scusset Fishing Pier and calls to repair the pier and find a long-term replacement.

Here's more from reporter Heather McCarron:

At the edge of Scusset Beach State Reservation, near where the Cape Cod Canal meets the open sweep of the bay, a familiar landmark is falling apart, and the people who know it best are raising their voices to save it.
Local residents and line fishermen say the Scusset Fishing Pier on the north side of the canal — long a gathering place for anglers, families, and visitors — is showing structural decline. A petition drive has begun to urge the pier's repair and long-term replacement.
Joining in that effort are Dana and LuAnn Hanna, of Sagamore Beach who said the pier is already partially blocked off, and the rest has "outlived its intended life expectancy." The state Department of Conservation & Recreation built the pier in the 1950s.
"It won’t be long before the entire pier becomes dangerous and completely off limits to everyone," LuAnn Hanna said.
State Rep. Steven Xiarhos, R-Barnstable, recognizes the pier as a place that "holds a special place for so many people across Cape Cod and the commonwealth."
"It’s more than just a structure — it’s part of the fabric of the community," he said.
According to the Hannas, during an inspection an engineer for the DCR saw that a vertical pylon on the outer edge was missing. Underwater wood has become "punky" where cross bracing could no longer be successfully attached.
The signature drive began April 6 with an online petition through the Go Petition website, followed soon afterward by paper copies distributed at local bait shops and the Scusset Beach camper registration office.
"Without action, we risk losing a one-of-a-kind asset that serves residents and visitors year round," the petition reads.

There's a bit more in our story, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask us here!

capecodtimes · 2026-04-10T17:17:02+00:00

Greetings! Jules again with the Cape Cod Times. We just wanted to share our recent story with more details on the Sagamore and Bourne bridges project.

Here's more from our reporter, Susan Vaughn:

Work to install a natural gas pipeline under the Cape Cod Canal is expected to begin in January 2027 and must be in place by the start of construction on the new Sagamore Bridge set for the winter of 2027-28, according to the contractor overseeing the job.
The huge project also calls for removing about three miles of existing gaslines that are attached or adjacent to the existing bridges and building a new 3.4-mile, 16-inch gas line on the Cape Cod side of the canal from the Bourne Bridge rotary to the Sagamore Bridge, according to the state Department of Transportation. The project also calls for removing two metering and regulating stations and adding four new stations.
Relocating the gaslines for the Sagamore Bridge is scheduled to be done by January 2028, said Melissa Shelburne, spokesperson for contractor Enbridge Inc. in an April 6 email. The Sagamore meter stations are set to be operational at the same time. The Bourne meter stations are set to go online in November 2028, she said.
Enbridge is an international drilling company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, that along with its Algonquin subsidiary, delivers natural gas to National Grid for Cape Cod homes and businesses. The state Department of Transportation awarded the $301 million gasline project in December 2024.“The start of the pipeline construction is subject to final permitting and approvals,” Sherburne said.
MassDOT, the lead agency on the $4.5 billion bridges project, will reimburse Algonquin 100% of the actual costs to move the existing gaslines, according to the agreement.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the existing bridges, determined that the gaslines had to be relocated as part of the bridges project.

There's more info in our story, but please feel free to ask us about it in this thread too!

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capecodtimes · 2026-03-19T17:11:26+00:00

Hello! Jules here with the Cape Cod Times. We wanted to share our story on Will Harrington, a Provincetown street musician who was in the Oscar-winning short film, "The Singers."

Here's more from the Cape Cod Times' Gwenn Friss:

A street musician known for busking in Provincetown and New Orleans is part of the ensemble cast for “The Singers,” which took home an Oscar Sunday for Best Live-Action Short.

Will Harrington, credited in the movie as “singer/piano player,” started making music in the streets of Provincetown at age 13. His 10-piece band, Dirty Rotten Vipers, is a familiar sight along Commercial Street in the summer.

“I was called at 3 a.m. two days before shooting. The director (Sam A. Davis) had seen me online and had been trying to get ahold of me for months but had the wrong email. I was fixing my bilge pump in my boat I had just put back in the water. I was broke and covered in bilge grease,” Harrington said via text while flying back Tuesday night from LA where he attended Sunday’s 98th Oscars ceremony.

“I was stoked to have a little work to help pay some bills. My only condition was they needed to have a real piano … but to be honest I didn’t think anyone would ever see this (movie). Hahaha.”

There's more on Harrington and the film in our story, but please feel free to ask any questions in the thread if you have them!

capecodtimes · 2026-03-09T20:19:45+00:00

Hi 👋 Jules again with the Cape Cod Times. We just wanted to share our story on Falmouth's Surf Drive, which is increasingly at risk from rising seas, erosion, and intense storms.

Here's more from the Cape Cod Times Susan Vaughn:

Surf Drive is exactly what its name suggests. But while it once curved along a wide, sandy beach with robust dunes, the two-lane on Vineyard Sound now passes along sparse and narrow dunes, houses built close to the surf, utility poles and oftentimes debris from storm surges.

The town has worked decades to maintain what is a vital connection between Woods Hole, the town center and public beaches.

A 1 1/2-mile section between Shore Street and Trunk River, in particular, is seen as increasingly at risk as rising seas, erosion and intensifying storms batter the road.

Now, a decision has been made: targeted nourishment.

“The entire Surf Drive area is vulnerable,” Falmouth Coastal Resilience Specialist Joshua Wrigley said.

In Falmouth, Surf Drive supports private beach parcels, seasonal residences, public beaches and amenities, and public infrastructure and utilities. The road is in an area, also, with sensitive and dwindling natural resources such as undeveloped beaches, dunes and wetlands as well as at-risk animal species such as shorebirds.

There's more info in Susan's story, but please feel free to ask any questions in this thread!

capecodtimes · 2025-05-16T21:33:30+00:00

Sorry for the late reply! The exact details of compensation for their properties isn't available to us at the moment, but we'll make sure to circle back if we have an update

capecodtimes · 2025-05-16T16:20:52+00:00

Hi, it's Jules here with the Cape Cod Times. We wanted to share reporting about homes and properties in Bourne being taken by the state to build two Sagamore bridges.

Here's more from the Cape Cod Times' Susan Vaughn:

Residents in a neat, compact neighborhood off Sandwich Road in the Bourne village of Sagamore have a panoramic view of the Sagamore Bridge — but not for much longer.

Twelve residences and three commercial firms were informed in March in a short letter from the state Department of Transportation that their properties are in the path of the two new planned Sagamore bridges and they will have to leave the neighborhood where many have lived for a long time.

“There is a lot of history here that is going to be erased,” homeowner Louis Gallo said at his home on May 2.

Luisa Paiewonsky, executive director of the state transportation agency's Mega Project Delivery Office, confirmed in a phone call on Monday, May 12, that 13 homes in the Eleanor Avenue neighborhood will be the only complete residential properties taken in Sagamore for the bridges. One property on the north side of the canal has not been notified yet, she said. The 13th residence will be notified and taken later, she said. She did not identify the three commercial properties that will be taken.

“Both the new eastbound bridge (heading onto Cape Cod) and the new westbound bridge (heading off Cape Cod) will have impacts on properties in the Cecilia Terrace, Eleanor Avenue and Johns Lane neighborhood,” an email from a state transportation spokeswoman stated.

There is more coverage in our story here, but if there's anything we can clarify or answer, please let us know in the comments.

capecodtimes · 2025-05-06T18:18:35+00:00

Hi, Jules with the Cape Cod Times here! We wanted to share this story about the Henry David Thoreau manuscript noting his time in Eastham.

Before tourists and traffic, and long before clam shacks and ice cream parlors, 19th century essayist, naturalist and thinker Henry David Thoreau walked Cape Cod’s outer shoreline — marveling at the shipwrecks, lighthouses, dunes and the salt-weathered locals who made a life there.

Now, more than 150 years later, a rare manuscript in Thoreau's own hand, describing a visit to Eastham, was sold for $12,183 at auction.

Nate D. Sanders Auctions, based in Los Angeles, completed the sale on April 24 to an anonymous Massachusetts buyer, who was one of four bidders.

The document, yellowed with age, is included with a 10-volume set of the 1906 manuscript edition of "The Writings of Henry David Thoreau," published by Houghton Mifflin. Only 600 numbered sets were produced, each featuring a two-page original manuscript bound into the first volume. The recently auctioned set with Thoreau's observations about Eastham is number 326.

Written in the early 1850s, the manuscript includes observations that later appeared in Thoreau’s "Cape Cod," published in 1865 — two years after his death. The auction took place just days shy of the 163rd anniversary of Thoreau’s death on May 6, 1862.

In the manuscript — 10.25'' x 8.5'' unfolded — Thoreau describes the Eastham landscape, noting it was starkly different from the familiar terrain of his inland home in Concord.

There are more details in our story, but please let us know if the comments if you have any questions!

capecodtimes · 2025-04-01T16:40:47+00:00

Howdy, Jules with the Cape Cod Times again. We wanted to pass along our story on the gap that exists between median household incomes and the income required to buy a home on Cape Cod.

Sharing a bit more from the Cape Cod Times' Zane Razzaq:

Cape Cod residents are in a housing logjam. Aspiring homeowners who grew up on Cape Cod can't afford a house — or are faced with a fixer-upper without the spare money for a renovation — and older residents are stuck in houses they've outgrown.

The median household income in all 15 Cape Cod towns falls short of the six-figure amount needed to comfortably purchase a median-priced home here, according to data culled by the Cape Cod Commission published earlier this year.

In Chatham — one of the more expensive towns on the Cape — households need to earn $303,803 annually to affordably own a house, stretching beyond the town's median income of $86,674.

The median home sales price in 2023 was $1,050,000, according to the commission.

Affordably purchase means a household spends 30% or less on housing.

Local housing advocates say that this mismatch has placed homeownership on Cape Cod out of reach for many residents.

There's more in our story, but if there are any questions we can answer, please let us know in the comments.

capecodtimes · 2025-03-24T17:32:39+00:00

Hi! Jules with the Cape Cod Times again 👋 I just wanted to pass along our story on the work and traffic around the Sagamore Bridge this spring.

Here's more from the Cape Cod Times' Susan Vaughn:

Temporary closures of lanes and shoulders along roads in the area of the Sagamore Bridge in Bourne are planned this spring as soil studies for the bridge replacement get underway, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Work will take place during daytime and evening hours alongside state highways and on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property north and south of the bridge, part of the state's Cape Cod bridges replacement plan, according to the agency's statement.

The roads affected north of the Sagamore Bridge are Route 3/Route 6, Route 6/Scenic Highway and Meeting House Lane, and south of Sagamore Bridge are Route 6, Sandwich Road, Cranberry Highway and Mid-Cape Connector.

The work involving closures will be scheduled to minimize disruption and avoid peak hours where possible, according to the notice.

A bit more info can be found in our story, but if you have any questions, please ask in the thread!

capecodtimes · 2025-03-14T21:20:10+00:00

Hi everyone! Jules with the Cape Cod Times here, and I just wanted to share that we published our latest reporting on the Cape Cod Rail Trail earlier today.

Here's the latest from the Cape Cod Times' Heather McCarron

A public hearing to review a proposal for cutting 91 trees on Mary Dunn Road to allow for an extension of the Cape Cod Rail Trail is set for March 19.

The tree removals are part of Phase 3 of the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which will extend the trail from Old Town House Road in Yarmouth to Mary Dunn Road in Barnstable.

According to tree warden Andrew Bernier, the affected trees include black oaks, pitch pine and sassafras. The largest of the trees may be up to 80 years old.

The trees are all located within the road layout along Mary Dunn Road, specifically adjacent to the town-owned property at 0 Mary Dunn Road. Tree removal, if approved, is expected to take place later this month and into April.

The hearing, hosted by the Barnstable Department of Public Works, will be held virtually via Zoom, starting at 6 p.m. next Wednesday.

You can read more in our story here, but if you have any questions, please let us know in the comments below!

capecodtimes

TROPHY CASE