Big Dig may not be such a big mess after all

24 December 2004

Against all odds - and almost against my will - I'm starting to like the Big Dig.

I know. This hardly seems to be the time. U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan reportedly has just launched a criminal probe into the project. It's not that Sullivan knows of any such nefariousness but, what the heck, there's no time like the present to pile on.

We are all sick of the thing. We've been living with it since 1988 and every year, every month and every dollar of the $15 billion project has worn us down. We now know the one-time grandiose claims to be false ("In the not-too-distant future, Boston traffic will be a thing of the past," boasted one 1998 Big Dig advertisement).

Everything seems double-edged. A new airport tunnel opens but the Sumner is now down to one lane. With much excitement, the underground Central Artery was unveiled, only to see new construction force shut some southbound lanes. And the Williams Tunnel westbound jams back into Logan at rush hour as congested traffic exiting onto Interstate 93 spills back onto the roadway.

And then there are the leaks - and the underlying doubts about whether the tunnels are safe at all - that have caused fury to boil over. All of a sudden, most of us think we know more about slurry wall construction than does Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff (even though, truth be told, hardly any of us knows what "slurry" is). We want Turnpike Chairman Matt Amorello's head on a spike somewhere - and preferably the heads of every one of his predecessors.

And yet there is within me this small but growing feeling of warmth about the whole thing. Perhaps it is just a passing feeling, one made acute by the sentimentality of the holidays and the close of the year.

But I think not. My epiphany - the sense that money, mess and Matt notwithstanding, the project might be worth it - came Tuesday as I drove onto Storrow Drive, right in the darkest heart of the afternoon rush, heading toward Logan Airport.

Most of us know this nightmare well. For at the end of Storrow there is a circle, and at the circle is a traffic light and that light - which sends cars to Route 1 and I-93 as well as to Cambridge or downtown - is every driver's bane.

But not on Tuesday. Instead of waiting in a line that often seems to extend back to the origins of the Charles River, I drove straight to the light, paused a few moments, and then headed right into the southbound tunnel.

The reason, of course, is yet another new tunnel that opened over the weekend. Cars heading north - about 60 percent of the traffic that used to line up along Storrow Drive - are now shunted away from Leverett Circle and sent smoothly on their way. At this point, with one lane still blocked off, the effect seems miraculous.

As so, like Scrooge when he awoke after his visit with the Ghost of Christmas Future, I now find myself in a state of delight, marveling at the wonders of the Big Dig. I can see sky around North Station! Look at the wonderful new land along the waterfront! The Dewey Square tunnels are almost done!

I hope the feeling stays. The danger of the Big Dig is that it has so traumatized us that it has sapped our will for future mega- projects.

There haven't been many in Boston - the making of the Back Bay, the construction of the original elevated central artery, the razing of the West End - and they have had a mixed record of success.

Yet there are needs out there (such as a proposed Urban Ring) demanding the same kind of epic thinking that gave us the Big Dig. Once the Big Dig is finished - and it will be finished - there's always more to be done.