The Big Dig I-93 Tunnel Section (Boston, Massachusetts)

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Please see the Wikipedia Article for a neutral report on this world-famous highway project.

As for a non-neutral description, the Big Dig was a plan to remove and re-route the section of I-93 underground through the city center of Boston in order to replace an older elevated span and to provide the city with a direct road connection to Logan Airport.

The original highway span was built in 1959 through what was a run-down section of the city. The US Government investigated the planned route and refused to fund it, as the roadway was too sharply curved to allow 55 mph highway speeds and the on/exit ramps were far too short to allow safe acceleration and deceleration for cars and trucks. Massachusetts built the highway anyway, using state taxpayer funds. The resulting roadway was almost immediately plagued with traffic jams and accidents along its legnth, and quickly became something of a four-letter word and running joke in the Boston Metro area.

By 1970 the amount of cars using the roadway more than doubled what it was originally designed to handle and the prospect of upcoming repairs led city planners to plan an ambitious restructuring of the entire downtown transit system, with the centerpiece being a new six-lane underground highway which became known as the Big Dig.

Massachusetts petitioned the US Government for funds to build the new highway in the 1980s, but the bill was rejected as being too expensive by President Reagan. Congress overrode his veto, and ground was finally broken in 1991. Construction was immensely complicated, as every project had to take place underneath operational buildings, rail lines, and the original highway span, and in many cases, the tunnel was dug through unstable landfill which needed to be frozen by superchilled seawater in order to remain hard enough to support the structures above it.

Cost overruns and delays began almost immediately. The original $5.8 billion price tag was so badly overrun by 2000 that the Mass Turnpike Chairman was forced to resign his post, and his successor was forced to commit to a $8.5 billion Federal funds cap in order to complete the project. The project eventually exceeded even the $14.3 billion contributed by US taxpayers, and is expected to top off at around 15-17 billion dollars.

The tunneling project was officially completed in 2006, a full six years behind schedule and over 10 billion dollars over budget. The new tunnels, bridges and interchanges which had become a running joke in their own right began to show their benefits as traffic jams and the past travel problems seemed to be finally cured.

The good press turned out to be short lived, as on July 10, 2006, a three-ton ceiling panel broke free from the I-93/I-90 connector tunnel and crushed a car, killing one of the occupants. The resulting inspection revealed that over 240 ceiling panels were in place with unsafe bolting systems, the result of shoddy worksmanship caused by construction firms taking kickbacks and fraudulently certifying work orders as sound. The resulting repair job closed the I-90 tunnel for three months while costing another $20 million.

Shortly after the collapse the Massachusetts State Police revealed that they had raided offices of the main concrete supplier, Aggregate Industries, and found that the company had falsified records and used cheap, substandard concrete in the construction of the entire tunnel system, while skimming the profits for themselves. The case is currently in Massachusetts Supreme Court, with the AG seeking to recover 100 million dollars, or 1/140th of what the contractors were paid by taxpayers.

Another eight million dollars was spent to retrofit the entire tunnel system with pumps to check "thousands of leaks" resulting from poor construction practices which have appeared in both the I-93 & I-90 tunnels.

Currently the Big Dig project continues as the open tract of land above the tunnel is converted into parkland. Despite its numerous teething problems, the Big Dig is now a viable and important part of the US Highway System and a technological marvel of engineering and construction. Its construction has re-opened and re-invigorated entire sections of the downtown areas of Boston and has finally alleviated many of the city's famous traffic problems.