Dow Jones Interactive

EDITORIAL
Op-Ed; Before any new digs, a word of caution
THOMAS M. KEANE JR.

01/22/2003
Boston Herald
All Editions
029
(Copyright 2003)

The Big Dig is now nearly halfway to becoming the Big Dug. The papers are filled with full-color diagrams depicting elegant on- and off-ramps. Almost every pol in the state gathered Friday to christen the newly completed Massachusetts Turnpike. Cars circled Logan International Airport on Saturday, hoping to be the first to drive through.

Caught up in the hoopla, I too wasted much of my weekend driving to and from East Boston on the just-opened, $6.5 billion roadway.

It was an underwhelming experience.

The new highway extends from the Interstate 93 interchange to the entrance to the Williams Tunnel. Having read of the engineering marvels it represented, the complex threading of a tunnel over the Red Line subway and under the Fort Point Channel, I was expecting something thrilling, perhaps - something dramatic.

Instead, I got a 40-second ride.

The new tunnel is less than a mile; no sooner had I entered, it seemed, then suddenly I was back in the sunshine, somewhere in South Boston, with the mouth of the Williams Tunnel in front of me.

At Logan, I turned around and came back out.

I passed one exit to South Boston and then I was trapped. There was no exit to I-93 (there will be eventually).

That's OK, I figured. I'll exit in Chinatown, or Back Bay or Kenmore Square.

Nope. No exits - and none planned, either. Next stop: the Allston tolls.

If you're a conventioneer flying into Boston and going to the Hynes Convention Center - or pretty much anywhere else in Boston except for South Boston - the new road will be of little assistance.

On the other hand, if you live in the western suburbs, you should be delighted. As Rep. Edward Markey said at the tunnel's unveiling, "It is now possible for someone in the town of Framingham to say, `Honey, I'm going to Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere. I'll be home in an hour.' "

Of course, there's a Kelly's in Natick, just one town over from Framingham.

All of which raises the question: Is it worth the total cost of nearly $15 billion?

Riding the new tunnel into Logan, one begins to get glimmerings of how the whole thing will look.

With the new highway, there's no more jumping from one road to the next to get to Logan or Route 1A.

And so, one imagines, the same will be true of the new, underground I-93.

One will approach the city from the south and then, through a series of tunnels, pass through Boston effortlessly, sailing north after passing over the grand Zakim Bridge.

Moreover, once the old expressway is taken down, a swath of new property will open, one that reconnects Boston to its waterfront.

So it may seem churlish - just as we starting to celebrate the end of the Big Dig - to be talking dollars and cents. After all, what's done is done and, no question, the result will completely change the look of downtown.

Still, that may be the reason why hard questions about the Big Dig's value should be asked.

Even as the end is in sight, local politicians now raise prospects for new schemes, such as the urban ring or the north- south rail link.

And other cities, looking at Boston, will also be intrigued. Why, San Francisco might wonder, can't we do the same with Route 101, which now runs on city streets just south of the city to the Golden Gate Bridge?

The somewhat vague rationale for the Big Dig back in the mid- 1980s was that it was an investment, one that would keep the region's economy going strong. With a price tag of just $2.6 billion, that may have seemed good enough.

But at more than five times that cost?

By one estimate, the new land uncovered by dismantling the old highway may be worth $1 billion.

And Big Dig officials claim that motorist delays on the old expressway cost $500 million a year in wasted time (itself a suspicious figure, since these days people use cell phones in their cars to conduct business).

Even if you believe these numbers (and I don't), they don't justify a $15 billion price tag. Moreover, it's by no means clear the Big Dig was needed to sustain our economy. After all, the Boston metropolitan region did pretty well economically during the 1990s.

Perhaps this is all, so to speak, water under the tunnel.

My suburban friends can't wait until they have to fly somewhere and can take the Mass Pike straight in.

And, no doubt, when the Big Dig is finally the Big Dug, it will be a marvel, a cool symbol of a new Boston.

Still, before we embark on the next municipal megaproject, we might want to inquire as to whether looking cool is the same as making sense.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.