Boston's Big Dig

[SSOWorld]

Sure - it got rid of that gawd-afuwl central artery double-decker separating east and south Boston from downtown and added green space - but being over budget and apparantly run with corruption that remade Massachusetts Transportation.  Traffic doesn't get stuck above ground anymore, it gets stuck underground.  Now that I have sat in the Central Artery Expressway's tunnel in my personal car, I have a few words about it.

I'm amazed at how many people sit in the tunnels with windows open on their cars and suck in that awful exhaust.

It has many benefits (better access to Logan Airport, lose the unsightly freeway, capacity expansion), but many drawbacks - flawed ventilation can be deadly - and a fire can cause many problems under the ground - plus the answer to expansion was more cars on the road

I'm sure other cities have the same problem (NYC, Hampton Roads for example)

Thoughts?

[Mergingtraffic]

how many lanes were before the Big-Dig and how many are there now?

[TheStranger]

how many lanes were before the Big-Dig and how many are there now?

Looking at a comparison of photos on Flickr, the tunnels are 8-laned:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rene-germany/15571970/

The old Central Artery was only 6 lanes:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28175182@N07/3550274150/

[deathtopumpkins]

I've spent significant time in Boston (including spending most of a day driving every single free ramp associated with the Big Dig, as well as the Tobin Bridge, etc.) and have never once been stuck in traffic on I-93. On I-95 on the other hand... lets not even go there.

Despite the budget overruns and political ramifications, I say the project was well worth it, and hope other cities will look at it as a potential alternative to their current unsightly elevated freeways. I am extremely pro-tunnel.

As for exhaust, I don't know about the Big Dig tunnels, as I had my windows up (hey, I was there in November! It was cold!), but the Hampton Roads tunnels are very well-ventilated, and I usually go through the HRBT with my windows down. Can't smell the exhaust as bad in the tunnel as you can out in the air sitting in traffic.

[TheStranger]

I am extremely pro-tunnel.

As am I, which is why I wish - maybe 100 years from now?  200? - that 101 will get a tunnel in SF.  But by then, we'll all be in flying cars, right?

My only ever trip to Boston was in '98 when the Big Dig was under construction so much of the elevated Central Artery still existed - I never forgot how atrocious traffic was on the six-lane skyway, clearly not built with modern traffic levels in mind.  (Now, would those traffic levels have been bad if I-695 had been constructed?  We'll never know.)

[SSOWorld]

Well I could smell (and feel) the exhaust [feel as in getting nausiated] in the Big Dig tunnel.  I closed the windows and turned on recirculating AC for the duration then reopened them when I got out of the tunnel to blow the air out - One can get killed by Carbon monoxide in that tunnel IMO.

By the way, the Southbound big dig tunnel has three lanes at one point (between off- and on-ramp)

[Stephane Dumas]

As am I, which is why I wish - maybe 100 years from now?  200? - that 101 will get a tunnel in SF.  But by then, we'll all be in flying cars, right?

The Simpsons episode "Lisa's wedding" done in 1995 mentionned the "hoover cars" for 2010, we still waiting for them

Another place where I could imagine a "Big Dig" is a revival of the LOMEX (Lower-Manhattan expwy) as the "LOMDIG" or the "MIDMANDIG"/"MIDDIG" (Mid-Manhattan Dig) linking NJ to Queens without a traffic light.

Btw, a part of the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens expwy) aged and need to be rebuilt and some suggested a tunnel....  http://groups.google.com/group/misc.transport.road/browse_thread/thread/91e082d2e4c6c81a/f7e47f48c38c480b?lnk=gst&q=brooklyn#f7e47f48c38c480b
http://www.roadsbridges.com/Jump-start-in-Brooklyn-article11974

[SidS1045]

If MassDOT, or whatever we're calling it this week, can get over its obsession with highway design methods straight out of the 1930s (and tell each and every politician to keep their grubby little paws out of the till), we might have had something to be proud of in the Big Dig.  Instead, we see the same old crap time and time again...mostly, lane drops on short notice which could have been avoided but which only now serve to back up traffic during rush hour, inadequate signage and a total failure to understand traffic patterns and plan for the future.  I realize they were working in cramped spaces with very little breathing room, but the amount of land that was taken by eminent domain for this project should have left them some extra room to actually design this turkey correctly.  I'm surprised there were no rotaries in it.  Bay State politicians love their rotaries, especially in places where they don't belong.

One little piece of the pie that provides an insight as to how this thing was so badly screwed up:  Due to the length of the tunnels, cell-phone service had to be provided for.  So, the project provided for several underground vaults where the cell companies could place their equipment.   Think the Big Dig's engineers actually talked to the cell companies to see how much room they'd need in those vaults?  BZZZZZZTT!  Wrong!  We got cell service in the tunnels, only three years after it was promised, and after MassDOT had to enlarge each equipment vault by at least 50%...and guess whose dime paid for that.

[Alps]

If MassDOT, or whatever we're calling it this week, can get over its obsession with highway design methods straight out of the 1930s (and tell each and every politician to keep their grubby little paws out of the till), we might have had something to be proud of in the Big Dig.  Instead, we see the same old crap time and time again...mostly, lane drops on short notice which could have been avoided but which only now serve to back up traffic during rush hour, inadequate signage and a total failure to understand traffic patterns and plan for the future.  I realize they were working in cramped spaces with very little breathing room, but the amount of land that was taken by eminent domain for this project should have left them some extra room to actually design this turkey correctly.  I'm surprised there were no rotaries in it.  Bay State politicians love their rotaries, especially in places where they don't belong.

Gotta agree with your second sentence - while I know where all the lane adds and drops are now from experience, I can see how dangerous they are to new drivers.  The 45 mph speed limit attempts to compensate for that (or is it 35-40?), but everyone drives at freeway speeds through the tunnels during non-congested times, so that makes it a lot harder to make your way through it all.  I think the tunnels should have been made 2' taller just so that signs could be made more visible - either with an extra line of text or just some more reflective space.

[mapman]

Usually in a large project like that, the signs are more-or-less an afterthought, which is really a shame.

[kurumi]

I am extremely pro-tunnel.

And anti-pumpkin.

I'd love to see a 3-mile tunnel under Hartford for I-84, leading from about exit 47 through exit 57. I'm not sure how to tie it in to the existing freeway network on the east side yet.

Then you could tear down the Aetna Viaduct (it's named after an HMO, that's how bad it is  ) and replace with a boulevard / upgraded streets / another way to downtown.

[agentsteel53]

Usually in a large project like that, the signs are more-or-less an afterthought, which is really a shame.

for it being an afterthought, it sure claimed a lot of surviving state-named interstate shields in the area.

[SSOWorld]

Usually in a large project like that, the signs are more-or-less an afterthought, which is really a shame.

for it being an afterthought, it sure claimed a lot of surviving state-named interstate shields in the area.

I think that was the least of their issues

[deathtopumpkins]

I seem to be alone on this, but the couple times I've driven the big dig I found it perfectly easy to navigate, and entirely congestion-free every time. Admittedly the signs could have been more informative, but, IIRC they contained enough information to easily navigate the tunnels.

[SignBridge]

ALPS, are you saying the lane-drops are not adequately signed in accordance with MUTCD requirements? I drove thru it a couple of years ago, and I don't remember that being a problem. Only that the signs are hard to see, 'cause of it being in a tunnel.

[Alps]

ALPS, are you saying the lane-drops are not adequately signed in accordance with MUTCD requirements? I drove thru it a couple of years ago, and I don't remember that being a problem. Only that the signs are hard to see, 'cause of it being in a tunnel.

Well, the MUTCD requires certain advance distances, but when you have so many ramps from both sides of the roadway, it's nigh impossible to sign things properly.  And since all you get are one-liners at the top of the tunnel, with dense traffic swirling around you and 3 to 5 lanes at any given moment, even if the signs DO show everything they need to, good luck seeing and reading them.

[Mergingtraffic]

any maps of the new I-93 after the big dig showing the lane drops and the mainline?  This thread talks about the random lane drops and additions...I would like to see it detailed.  Ubnfortunately Bing Maps doesn't have bird's eye view underground.

[mightyace]

Unfortunately Bing Maps doesn't have bird's eye view underground.

But Google Streetview has underground views:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Boston,+MA&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=46.543597,51.855469&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts&ll=42.364759,-71.030989&spn=0.044963,0.111494&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=42.365087,-71.059512&panoid=ePaT6UKu-tdAamGUg7BQ7Q&cbp=12,144.87,,0,16.57

[Bickendan]

I am extremely pro-tunnel.

And anti-pumpkin.

I'd love to see a 3-mile tunnel under Hartford for I-84, leading from about exit 47 through exit 57. I'm not sure how to tie it in to the existing freeway network on the east side yet.

Then you could tear down the Aetna Viaduct (it's named after an HMO, that's how bad it is  ) and replace with a boulevard / upgraded streets / another way to downtown.

There's a proposal to bury I-5 under the Willamette and through East Portland. It'd require the sinking of the southern 3/4 miles of I-405 as well.

[2Co5_14]

any maps of the new I-93 after the big dig showing the lane drops and the mainline?  This thread talks about the random lane drops and additions...I would like to see it detailed.  Ubnfortunately Bing Maps doesn't have bird's eye view underground.

I have some old plans showing the proposed lane confgurations - I will have to find them and scan them so you can see them.

From what I remember, some of the lane drops and additions were constrained by having to use some of the previously existing on & off ramps and tunnel sections to tie into the new ones.  So they aren't just a product of negligent design.

[cpzilliacus]

Boston.com: 10 years later, did the Big Dig deliver? - The $15 billion project is a road paved with failures, successes, and what-ifs.

It was our obsession spanning three decades, the kitchen renovation that would never end, fodder for late-night television jokes. The Big Dig was no mere act of public works, never talked about in the way New Yorkers refer to the Lincoln Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge – infrastructure that cleanly does its job. Ours was the mega project of faulty epoxy, light fixtures dropping like pine needles, Ginsu guardrails, and sea water leaks. The boondoggle, good money after bad, the white elephant.

As the most expensive highway in US history, the Central Artery and Tunnel project had a special, contradictory destiny: an engineering marvel deemed to be ill-conceived from the start. We stood on the sidelines darkly, shaking our heads, exercising Yankee pessimism honed by generations of not winning a World Series. This thing would never work out. There was too much opportunity for incompetence and corruption. They'd blow the save in the ninth inning and we'd all go home unhappy.

[vdeane]

Does anyone even want to imagine what turning I-93 into a surface boulevard would look like?

[noelbotevera]

And five years later, in 2015, we all learned that the Big Dig was a large disaster!

To be honest, they should have accounted for future traffic and built more lanes, or at least had room for future widening.

[PHLBOS]

Does anyone even want to imagine what turning I-93 into a surface boulevard would look like?

Actually, a portion of the old Artery (from just north of High St. to just south of the Callahan Tunnel) had a surface road running directly underneath it.  IIRC, such was appropriately named either Surface Road or Surface Artery.

More to the point, as intrusive as the old elevated Central Artery was; if it wasn't built, many of the businesses located along that corridor probably would've located away from the downtown area or even outside of the city.  The Financial District wouldn't have even existed; at least not at its present location.

To be honest, they should have accounted for future traffic and built more lanes, or at least had room for future widening.

It's worth noting that much of the design dates back to the mid-1980s with an originally anticipated completion about a decade later.  Plus, and CP's web-linked article gives hint of such, the buried/tunneled highways themselves weren't supposed to be the end-all (even then-MA Transporation Secretary Fred Salvucci admited such in an old Boston Herald article circa 1988).  Transit expansions and improvements were planned to come after the Big Dig work was done.

As far as provisions for a future widening is concerned; given the overall cost, how long and how much BS (I'm calling it for what it is here) the current Big Dig project went through; providing provisions for a future widening would've been too much to stomach.

My main gripe is with the current design is that the I-93/O'Neill Tunnel interchanges with the Sumner/Callahan (MA 1A) and the Ted Williams (I-90) Tunnels are not full/complete movement interchanges.  That defect has come back and bitten the Commonwealth on the butt several times.  The current interchange ramps (access to/from the older 2 tunnels from only points north and access to the Ted Williams Tunnel only from points south and west (through-I-90 movements)) works great under normal conditions; but if there's an issue with one of the tunnels (be it an accident or construction), one can find themselves driving on local/surface roads (something that locals certainly don't want) in order to access the alternate tunnel.

Another issue with the tunneling of I-93 in the city meant that vehicles carrying hazardous materials (aka HAZMATs) are not allowed to use the underground highway (they were allowed on the old elevated Artery).  As a result, such vehicles have to use local/surface roads to get around (depending on the client & business, their O&D can also be in the City of Boston).

The biggest plus of the Big Dig, IMHO is a component that actually predated such and originally rejected by Dukakis/Salvucci during the mid-70s; the Ted Williams (aka the Third-Harbor) Tunnel.  That component, along with its smaller Liberty Tunnel that extended I-90 to Logan removed a major bottleneck and improved access to the airport from points west and south.

The 3rd tunnel was originally conceived in the late 60s as a plan for a relocated I-95 east of the Central Artery and was planned to run in a more northerly direction through the Fort Point Channel.  During the King Administration (1979-1983), there were plans in the works to just build the 3rd tunnel and connect it to the existing Artery & Pike; but when Dukakis returned to the Governor's seat in 1983, that plan was scrapped in favor of an Artery-only Big Dig.  A realignment of the 3rd tunnel to its current location (away from the Channel) convinced Dukakis & Salvucci to do both.  Needless to say, plans to build a highway from the Ted Williams Tunnel northward towards Revere & Saugus went nowhere.

[cpzilliacus]

Does anyone even want to imagine what turning I-93 into a surface boulevard would look like?

No, but I am sure there are folks from the usual-suspect groups that would assert that this would be a great idea!