Is Boston's Big Dig a Big Mistake?

[Cotuit]

I believe it is the Orange Line (relocated from the Washington St. Elevated) along with a commuter rail artery of sorts before it branches into several lines. Someone correct me if I'm way off.

Yup, the Southwest Corridor, which was cleared for construction of I95 (which was blocked by Gov. Seargent in the 70s) currently carries the relocated orange line and the Franklin, Needham, Attleboro, and Stoughton commuter rail lines as well as Amtrak. The Fairmount line runs on a much older rail line east of the Southwest Corridor.

[Aporkalypse]

This thread has changed my opinion as previously I had thought of it as a huge cluster... well, you know. I have no problem with subsidizing what we need to to keep one of our oldest cities and a national treasure in good condition as long as its not wasteful.

[blink55184]

Another problem was the actual building/structure of all of this.

Perhaps if a different construction agency had completed the project with less faulty walls, cracks, floods, and leaks, people like us would not even be raising the issue of whether or not the dig is appropriate

[UrbaniDesDev]

Never been on it, but I am fascinated by it.

I would say that it is possibly the most unfair use of public money. How many other projects were scrapped because of lack of funding. It was a black hole of public funding

[jpl02]

Here's an interesting figure

http://www.governing.com/digit.htm

I wonder how the number was derived.

There's been a lot of talk about this. The state just released a report saying that the commute time through the city has dropped substantially. But it's getting a lot of flak because a number of people are syaing that it hasn't cut down commute times - it actually made them worse. The back ups have simply been pushed further away from the city. Plus, the poor placement of ramps has caused many more people to use the city roads instead of the expressway. For instance, some people coming in on the Pike used to go north on the expressway and exit at Atlantic ave. Now they end up getting off at Copley and taking city streets. So people are now spending more time stuck in surface street traffic.

The ramps were placed on the premise that the old Central Artery had way too many exits which led to 1) weaving 2) short merge times and 3) people using the freeway for short distances, instead of city streets. I think the Mass Highway Dept made a wise choice of limiting exits and ramps. As far as people using city streets, perhaps that's a good thing. Keep in mind that the Artery is used for express traffic, not traffic in and around downtown. The less city traffic is on the Artery, the faster and quicker express traffic can enter/leave the city.

As far as pepole stuck on the city streets.....I can't say much. Boston was built before the age of the car, so they'll have to suck it up, or make like folks in the Big Apple and use transit. If the above figure is true, then I would like to say the end result of the Big Dig is desirable.

[surroundsound7]

Several people on here have said that MA residents paid the bill. The legistlation that created the big dig was the 1992 intermodal surface transportation efficiency act (ISTEA), which was a FEDERAL act, and was therefor paid for with FEDERAL money. MA residents so far as i know, didn't pay anything!!! And thats why it was such a gross boondoggle with massive cost overruns. This project was one of the most egregious cases of pork politics ever. ISTEA was written in part by Tip O'Neill (from MA). The amount of money spent on this could have paid for a college education and a home for every poor person in the state!

[Recchia]

Um, yeah but plenty of state funds also went towards the project. It wasn't funded 100% federally.

[Cotuit]

MA residents so far as i know, didn't pay anything!!!

You might should check your facts before going on accusatory rants.

[Scott]

Big Dig benefit: A quicker downtown trip

Turnpike Authority report cites business gain

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff {sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}} February 15, 2006

The $14.6-billion Big Dig project has cut the average trip through the center of Boston from 19.5 minutes to 2.8 minutes and has increased by 800,000 the number of people in Eastern Massachusetts who can now get to Logan International Airport in 40 minutes or less, according to a report that is scheduled to be released today.

The report is the first to analyze and link the drive-time benefits of the project to its economic impact since the Big Dig built its final onramp last month. The report relies on data obtained since milestones were completed in 2003, such as opening of the Ted Williams Tunnel to all traffic and opening of the northbound and southbound Interstate 93 tunnels.

Officials at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which manages the project, released the executive summary portion of the report to the Globe yesterday.

The improved drive times are projected to result in savings of $167 million annually: $24 million in vehicle operating costs and $143 million in time. The report estimates that the Big Dig will generate $7 billion in private investment and will create tens of the thousands of jobs in the South Boston waterfront area and along the I-93 corridor.

The report was authored by the Economic Development Research Group, Inc., a Boston-based consulting firm, at the behest of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which paid about $100,000 for the research, much of which was gathered from agencies such as the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization, officials said. ''We had nothing to do with how they analyzed it," said the authority spokeswoman, Mariellen Burns.

The report is to be made public this morning at a quarterly board meeting of the Artery Business Committee at the World Trade Center in South Boston.

The Artery Business Committee, the business community's voice on matters about the Big Dig, also reviewed the report to confirm the projected benefits.

The report issued several findings:

The project has reduced by 62 percent the number of daily vehicle hours traveled on both the central artery, the airport tunnels, and Storrow Drive eastbound.

Speeds on Storrow Drive east to I-93 north have improved from 4 to 21 miles per hour.

Afternoon peak travel times along the length of the I-93 northbound through downtown have dropped from 16 to 3.1 minutes.

''This is the first report done since the opening of the project, and it demonstrates that those commitments and promises made back in the 1980s were true," the authority chairman, Matthew J. Amorello, said yesterday.

The report says that one of the most far-reaching impacts the project has had involves giving more people faster access to Logan.

When the turnpike extension connecting Interstate 90 with Logan Airport, opened fully in 2003 and allowed drivers from the South Shore to avoid snaking through downtown Boston to the Callahan tunnel, the number of people who found themselves within 40 minutes of drive time of the airport grew by 800,000, to a total of about 2.5 million.

That extension, coupled with the opening of the Ted Williams Tunnel, resulted in less traffic on the Callahan and Sumner tunnels, where average weekday speeds increased from 13 miles per hour to 36 miles per hour.

The report projects that the highway improvements will attract $7 billion in private investment, adding more than 43,000 jobs along the I-93 corridor and in the South Boston Seaport District.

''Looking toward the future, the pattern of new development in the Back Bay that originally derived from the Turnpike extension project is being repeated in South Boston and along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway as a result of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project," the report says. The turnpike extension from Newton to Boston was completed in 1965.

The report estimates that property tax revenues from Big Dig development on the South Boston Waterfront, where large parcels remain undeveloped, will equal 9 to 11 percent of the city's 2005 tax base of $1.13 billion when the waterfront is fully developed as planned, in about 20 years.

The wages paid to construction workers along the South Boston Waterfront are predicted to yield $5 million to $6 million annually in state income tax and sales tax revenue, as long as development continues.

Analyzing developments built, under construction or being planned, researchers said completion of the Big Dig will mean several benefits. Among them:

About 7,700 new housing units.

About 1,000 affordable housing units.

About 10 million square feet of office and retail space.

About 2,600 hotel rooms.

The executive summary did not explain in detail how the researchers reached their conclusions.

The summary refers to the full report for explanations on how their calculations were done.

Richard A. Dimino, president of the Artery Business Committee, said report ''demonstrates a wonderful story about how Boston's new central highway system sets the stage for economic growth going into the next millennium."

''It's been over 20 years since anybody has tried to take a thorough look at the economic impacts of the Central Artery/Tunnel project" he said, noting that the last economic impact statement was done in the 1980s before the project began.

''What's important and impressive . . . is that this combines the mobility benefits with the land development and economic benefits.

''While we all understood that the project would enhance the trip to downtown Boston through downtown Boston and to Logan," he added, ''I think the report take it a step further and articulates the opportunities for the economic future of Boston, as well."

[UrbaniDesDev]

Is it still leaking?

[Scott]

The tunnel was never in any danger of real flooding. The Central artery was built with the expectation that water would always have to be pumped out because almost all of it was built on filled land. The problem of excessive leaks has been fixed at the contractors at faults expense. It sounds worse than the reality.

Alot of people don't like the idea of Massachusetts and its politics so they tried to make hay out of it without considering any of the facts. The fact is that the Big Dig is small peanuts compared with the $500 billion we have spent so far in Iraq and not in our own country.

[orulz]

The whole cost issue aside...

I'm a bit disappointed that the rail link wasn't included in the project the first time around. The slurry walls for the tunnels are deep enough to allow for construction of a railroad tunnel beneath the expressway, but that will be a massively expensive and likely disruptive project.

My inclination is, that adding the rail link to the Big Dig from the outset might have raised the final cost by 2 or 3 billion, but bring more than $3 billion in benefits to the region; doing the rail link afterwards will cost a lot more and be more disruptive. The idea that Amtrak trains could run all the way from Maine to New York and beyond, and that MBTA commuter trains could run cross-town, connecting directly with the T's red, blue, orange, and green lines is intriguing to say the least.

Not living in Boston I can't say from experience, but I doubt the Dig was worth all that money without the rail aspect going with it.

[UrbaniDesDev]

I don't deny the need in Boston, compared to the boondoggles that go on in Alaska

[Scott]

I agree that the North/ South Rail Link would be great and is still a good idea but with Congress beating up AMTRAK the likelyhood of that happening is slim. The only reason a DC to Maine train is possible in the first place is the improvements to rail infrastructure done by New England states like MA, CT, RI, ME in the last two decades while politicians in NH continue to drag their feet. This happened while the Big Dig was going on. No other American city has done more to improve its mass transit system than Boston and I look forward to projects like expanding the Green Line to Somerville as mitigation projects for the Big Dig.

btw-Today, in the middle of the day, I drove from Billerica 20 miles north of the city and picked up a person at the Hanover Mall at least 20 miles south and drove them to Brookline Village 5 miles west of the city via Roxbury and it took me an hour and a half. Ten years ago it might have taken 3 hours. For me, today, the Big Dig has been a roaring sucess.

[Dozer]

Yup, the Southwest Corridor, which was cleared for construction of I95 (which was blocked by Gov. Seargent in the 70s) currently carries the relocated orange line and the Franklin, Needham, Attleboro, and Stoughton commuter rail lines as well as Amtrak. The Fairmount line runs on a much older rail line east of the Southwest Corridor.

A little late, but here is a pic of the corridor as of 2005:

I used to live about a 2 minute walk from it. Beautiful area.

Another:

And for those of you who are interested, may I recommend a book about the urban renewal plans for Boston in the 1960's and how they were halted. The book is entitled "Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. City". Printed in 1971, this book gives a great account of the politics behind the highway planning and destruction in Boston, and how grassroots efforts finally culminated in the 1970 moratorium of all highway construction within the 128 circumfrencial highway by then Governor Sargent. Many of you may have already read it, but for those who have not, it is a terrific read - I highly recommend it.

-Bobby

[UrbanLifter]

Thanks to the Big Dig, I can service Clients on the South Shore and be based on the North Shore. And my Husband, can work on the South Shore and live on the North Shore. Without the Big Dig, his 20 minnute commute would be 1.5 hours. The old elevated was stacked with cars morning, noon and night. It literally never ended.

So much of hte attention was focused on the I-93 tunnels that replaced the elevated highway through the city. But the Big Dig is so much more (already discussed in this thread). The direct extension of I-90 and tunnel to Logan is brilliant. Logan is far more accesible now to all of Boston and especially from the South Shore.

The section where the old elevated stood is being turned into a beautiful parkway which will complement and reconnect the neighborhoods divided by the old elevated.

It was a huge project but worth every dollar spent!

[Jerseyman4]

Underground limited access highways are the way to go! I was very impressed with the mobility through the central artery driving through it a year ago. Id like to see some of NYC's existening expressways and parkways go through a similar campaign by bringing above ground parkland with the highways underground. This would improve air quality for the millions of people who live in teh city.

[ChunkyMonkey]

Frankly, it's amazing that Boston managed to do the Big Dig. In this day and age, it is politically impossible to get a project this big done in the U.S. Everyone will be yelling PORK.

It is expensive as hell, but in the few decades, nobody will say that they wish the old creaky central artery was back.

[tamias6]

I'm not from Boston nore ever been there, but I did watch a program about the Big Dig on the History Channel. I am blown away on how they pulled it off without shuting the whole city down. I wish that the highways here in Grand Rapids, MI where put undergound like this. US 131 took out alot of historic buildings in our Downtown, and I-196 had a negative effect by dividing a thriving neighbor hood in half.

[Cadeho]

Didn't this start as a tunnel to evade the British and as a communications route? No? Seems like it's been that long!

[Recchia]

Well, a peice of the Ted Williams tunnel fell onto a woman's car last night and killed her...

Boston.com Story

[tracer1138]

Well, a peice of the Ted Williams tunnel fell onto a woman's car last night and killed her...

Boston.com Story

It's unfortunate, because of the reactionary tendencies of this country, it could be 100 years before we see another attempt at a big project like this.

Instead of taking a step back and trying to get it right, we go overboard and opt not to do it at all.

[cranberries]

So what is wrong with this alternative?

[atlrvr]

I'm not sure I can agree...though I've only lived in the city for a few months....I certainly remember driving on 93 before, and there is no comparison to what it is today. As far as the local population.....I live less than 50 feet from Surface Road on the "wrong side" that would have been cut off from everything without the Big Dig (though I wouldn't have lived here)...it's brought neighborhoods together, significantly enlivened the waterfront, brought tremendous development (Intercontinental, Waterfront Westin, plus the upcoming Russia Wharf and South Station Tower)

It also open up the North End, and I'm sure has helped bring additional business to the area's restaurants from tourists that can now find it. The greenway is coming along excruitiatingly slow, but the corridor is already becoming pedestrian friendly with wide sidewalks, and connecting many points of interest.

I would agree, if I didn't live downtown, work downtown, and pretty much do everything downtown, I would see it as a waste, but on the flip side, I pretty much see every suburban ring intestate as a waste, so it evens out.

[Archon]

The big dig is the clearest demonstration of what I have observed so many times as I work for government. You start with something that might be a good idea and then it gets lost in the procurement and contract management. A great project can be ruined and over-run by loose contracts, bad specifications and "scope creep". Government usually has project managers who are paid far less than the comparable people who are their "enemies" in the companies they do business with. The contractors realize that their income depends on taking a 1 million dollar contract and turning it into a 10 million dollar cost overrun. So it always happens that the government gets out-schnookered by the legions of lawyers that work for companies that "serve" them. You'd think that someday chief executives would realize that if they hired a million dollar shark of a contract manager, they might save zillions of dollars on cost overruns and scope creep. You see it in the big dig, in 200 million dollar airplanes and everywhere that a contract was signed with a proposal that doubles or triples before construction is done. It's pennywise, dime foolish thinking at its worst.