The crumbling Casey Overpass will be demolished next year, but until then the road will remain open as is: cracks, holes and all.

The first stages of shutdown are planned for spring 2014, but cars visibly have to drive slow on the bumpy, torn up roadway.

Though the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, other city officials and Jamaica Plain residents have (for the most part) settled on the $54 million at-grade Casey Arborway plan, MassDOT is at in impasse over the current state of the overpass: Does it pay to fix what’s there now or does it sit back and wait for problems to arise, hoping the site will stay intact long enough to remain passable until the roadway can be closed for good?

“I think we’re going to do the bare minimum,” Michael Trepanier, senior environmental planner at the Highway Division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, said regarding future maintenance of the current overpass. “We obviously have to maintain safety in the roadway, we don’t want to have to close the bridge.”

MassDOT had to do just that last August when concrete fell from the bridge.

The bridge was repaved in December 2011, but there is no such plan in place now except to perform the routine annual inspection required of all state bridges.

“We would certainly repair any issues that arise to keep it functional,” Trepanier said.

Follow all the Casey Overpass news at the JP Patch Casey Overpass topic page.