The Boston Globe has stated editorially that the "project will be worth every penny.
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How to pay for the landscaping and maintenance topside, however, has yet to be fully determined.īoston's business community supports CA/T enthusiastically. Where the artery plunges underground, acres and acres of new green space are planned in the heart of the city. Bus, subway, and commuter train lines will be expanded. The new, wider central artery will have a capacity of 250,000 cars a day. The present central artery carries some 190,000 cars daily, although it was designed in the 1950s to carry 75,000, officials say. To supporters, the original promise of the Big Dig remains a breathtaking vision: to replace an eyesore cutting through the center of the city with an intermodal transportation system that will both transform the downtown and waterfront area and help shape a vital economic future for the region. Frank Wolf (R) of Virginia, long an opponent of the project and chairman of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, has questioned whether the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel (CA/T), which is 85 percent federally funded, should even continue. The project is 7.5 miles long, with a little more than three miles running beneath downtown Boston. Since 1987, the estimated cost of the project has soared from $2.5 billion to a $10 billion. Zuk, who became director of the troubled project for the Massachusetts Highway Department in 1991. "I take a lot of criticism from the media," says Mr.
(Two older tunnels currently move cars and taxis back and forth to Logan.) After some 20 years of political maneuvering, lawsuits, a mountain of reports, and heated debates, one piece of the Big Dig will actually be operational. Commercial traffic will begin flowing between downtown Boston and Logan International Airport. On that day, if all goes well, a part of the Big Dig - the Third Harbor Tunnel running under Boston Harbor at a cost of more than $1.3 billion - will be opened with fanfare. 15, Peter Zuk, director of the Big Dig (officially known as the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project) expects a brief ray of light amid the criticism. By comparison, the 32-mile-long Channel Tunnel between France and England cost $16 billion and was completed last year only a year off schedule.īut come Dec. Nearly a dozen federal and state agencies have leveled charges of mismanagement, excessive cost overruns, and lack of oversight at the project.
So many problems have surfaced that the completion date has been delayed from 1998 to 2004. A new eight-lane expressway tunnel will replace a rusting old elevated central artery clogged with traffic.īut after four years, and before the major portion of the project has been dug, the Big Dig has become the costliest per-mile highway in US history. Part of the $10 billion project known as "The Big Dig" will burrow under downtown Boston in an amazing engineering feat. It will cost more than the gross national product of Bolivia or all the houses in Beverly Hills, Calif. The most expensive stretch of highway ever built. Boston - famous for baked beans, Paul Revere, and the Red Sox - now has another claim to fame.
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