The Big Dig: The Sky is Falling in Boston
Hard to do when you’re sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic in one of the tunnels, watching water from the Boston Harbor above you trickle down the concrete walls around your car and trying not to contemplate just when that trickle is going to become a flood.
Well, the joke became very unfunny on July 10, 2006. Riding in the passenger seat of a car driven by her husband, mother of three Milena Del Valle was killed instantly when a slab of concrete weighing several tons broke loose from the ceiling of the I-93 connector to the Ted Williams Tunnel and landed on top of their vehicle, crushing Del Valle.
Del Valle’s husband tried vainly to pull her from the car. He did not realize that his wife of only four years was already dead.
Boston residents aren’t calling the tragedy an accident. District Attorney Tom Reilly has announced that he is pursuing criminal action in the matter, and the scene of the accident has been treated as a crime scene. Colorful Boston flamboyance aside, and Boston’s political officials have been famously colorful and flamboyant since before Paul Revere took his revolutionary horse ride, residents are okay with this somewhat grandiose gesture. Boston’s been waiting for a Big Dig catastrophe for some time now.
The Big Dig tragedy wasn’t what most city residents were expecting, however. The biggest concern discussed, and discussed, (and discussed) at the water coolers and over the drive-time airways was the leaks. Those tell-tale streams of water that can be seen cascading down the tunnel walls have always had a disconcerting affect on commuters, prompting some to actually seek out trip elongating alternate routes. When it was revealed that over a million gallons of the Boston Harbor had already poured into the tunnels, the city went into an uproar. Those tunnel leaks have been the cause of some fear and anger in Boston, and postulation about how long it would take before they caused serious harm was rampant.
That is, unless tragedy was struck first by means of fire. One of the measures taken by officials overseeing the Big Dig construction to attempt to stem them tide of the leaks was to seal off the tunnel’s emergency fire egresses.
As it turned out, the Big Dig sky was falling.
The largest and most expensive highway reconstruction project to date in the United States is a taxpayer-funded boondoggle, and now due to substandard materials and shoddy construction, a woman is dead.
Originally budgeted at $2 billion when construction was started fifteen years ago, the Big Dig bill is currently checking in at $14.6 billion. That is not a typo. The Big Dig is currently over budget by more than six times the amount of the original cost presented to Boston taxpayers, and billions more are going to be required to address the tunnel leaks.
That was before the death of Milena Del Valle. Investigation of the city tunnels after the tragic accident have revealed that over 1,400 bolt assemblies holding the concrete ceilings in place have been found to be substandard, and that over 1,100 bolt assemblies have been inappropriately affixed to the tunnel roof with epoxy (yes, the glue). It has also been discovered that more multi-ton slabs of concrete have slipped down in their assemblies and are hovering precariously secured over the heads of Boston tunnel drivers, and over 5,000 truckloads of cement used in the construction of the Big Dig have been discovered to be of substandard quality. Those figures are to date. Investigation continues.
The affect of the death of Del Valle has impacted the lives of every resident of the city of Boston. The I-93 connector to the Ted Williams tunnel is closed indefinitely. The already congested traffic into the city, often brought to a standstill these past fifteen years during high volume hours by the Big Dig construction and constant route detouring, is now all but crippled. The Ted Williams Tunnel, the most convenient connector to East Boston and Logan Airport is closed to commuters. The spider web effect of the closures has affected all the major highways around the city, as Boston drivers seek alternate routes to their destinations. Getting a spot on an MBTA bus or train is more challenging as more and more drivers eschew bringing their cars into the city.
Boston has always been legendary for the antics and “wink, wink” deals struck by notoriously corrupt politicians and their big money associates. Where else but Boston could the mayor be reelected from prison (even Washington D.C.’s Marion Barry had to wait until he was released)? Boston residents have always had something of an “indulgent parent” response to the corruption, shaking their heads and tsk, tsking, while never really calling for change. As journalist Katy Burns of the Concord Register wrote “let Boston be Boston.”
That tolerant temperament has been tested over the past fifteen years as Boston residents have sat in Big Dig traffic, gazing at the streams of Boston Harbor and contemplating the results of their tax dollars’ at work. The tolerance has just about run out since the death of Milena Del Valle.
The very public political finger pointing began within hours of the tunnel tragedy, and can certainly be expected to continue for a long time to come. Politicos point at Bechtel, the engineering oversight company hired to oversee the Big Dig construction. Bechtel points at its contractors. The contractors point at sub-contractors. The sub-contractors point back at the contractors, Bechtel, and the politicians.
Let Boston be Boston, indeed.
