As part of the building of South Station (opened 1899), Federal Street was cut between the bridge and Dewey Square.

Dorchester Avenue was extended north from the bridge around the east side of the new union station, along the shore of the Fort Point Channel, intersecting Mount Washington Avenue (which was also cut by the new station) and Summer Street and ending at Congress Street.

In the 1990s it was closed to the public, including pedestrians and bicyclists, from the bridge to Summer Street, due to its proximity to Big Dig construction.

In February 2022, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced that a $37 million project to replace the Dorchester Avenue bridge passing over the MBTA Red Line will be included in the $9.5 billion in federal funds the state government received under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

[1][2] The Dorchester Avenue Railroad, one of the first street railways in Boston, started operations in 1857, eventually running over the full length (from downtown to the Neponset River).

As the Red Line opened in the 1910s and 1920s, parallel to Dorchester Avenue, most through passengers switched to that, and local routes were rerouted to feed into the new subway.