Boston’s Big Dig Faces Big Convention Deadline

It is the most expensive highway construction project in the nation’s history -- and possibly the most miserable marriage of residents and redevelopment.

Replacing an antiquated, elevated highway with a 10-lane interstate running below Boston was so ambitious that some likened it to building the Panama Canal. But while that fabled engineering effort took place in a sparsely populated jungle, the Big Dig -- as the $14.6-billion Central Artery Project is known -- has rerouted more than a decade of daily life in a big, bustling city.

When Boston was selected late last month to host the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a cautious ripple of anticipation clutched a Big Dig-weary populace. Could there finally be light at the end of the 7.5-mile tunnel that will carry cars, trucks and buses under the city’s busy surface?

“It’s fantastic,” said Sol Sidell, owner of a small restaurant in the heart of Big Dig country. “What you’re looking at are the final finishing touches of the future.”

In fact, what Sidell’s gaze and outstretched arms encompassed was a sidewalk too narrow for more than one pedestrian. Outside his South Street Diner, an excavator chomped huge holes in the asphalt, and jackhammers pummeled pavement. Nearby, a section of a bridge dangled from an immense yellow crane.

Not only is the Big Dig a year or more behind schedule, but it also is coming in at more than twice the original $6.4-billion budget approved by Congress in 1987. As the cost grew, federal support shrank -- from 86% at the outset to the current 55%. Lawsuits and contract disputes mushroomed. Engineering obstacles such as unforeseen deposits of bedrock also slowed a project intended to reclaim a human-focused environment by submerging a rickety eyesore built in 1959, the heart-swoon phase of America’s love affair with the automobile.

By sinking a raised artery that slashed past the Boston harbor, the Big Dig would connect downtown Boston to its own waterfront. At one end of the underground interstate, the endeavor entailed constructing the world’s widest cable-stayed bridge. At the other, a four-lane tunnel named for baseball hero Ted Williams provided a long-needed link between the Massachusetts Turnpike and Logan International Airport.

Project officials promised traffic capacity would double, to 225,000 cars a day. And above it all would be a glorious park, since named for Rose Kennedy, late matriarch of the Massachusetts Democratic dynasty.

Eager for the payoff, many in Boston nonetheless wondered how wise it was to invite 34,000 visitors when the Big Dig remains unfinished. Some here expressed skepticism, as if the vast traffic nightmare might continue forever.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Glenn Monroe, 38, a computer science student. “Many days it feels like the whole of Boston is under construction.”

Transportation officials acknowledge they are racing against the July 26, 2004, kickoff date of the Democratic National Convention. But Massachusetts Turnpike Chairman Matthew J. Amorello, head of the Big Dig, vowed last week that the project will be “98% completed” by the time the convention begins.

“The end is here,” Amorello declared. “Will there be trees and all the plantings? No. But we will be well on our way. I think we will be able to showcase to the city and the world the only transportation system of its kind.”

Big Dig delays killed Boston’s dreams of hosting a 2000 presidential convention. This time, Mayor Thomas M. Menino took no chances. He hauled the site selection committee to Boston, outfitted its members with hard hats and drove them into the tunnel he says will teem with eight to 10 traffic lanes when the Democrats arrive.

The mayor showed his guests a ventilation system that proposes to circulate clean air at 120 feet below surface roadways. He pointed to breakdown lanes, emergency alert systems and tile walls topped with stainless steel grating. Menino also noted that, as the first of its kind, the Big Dig is a kind of living laboratory -- and now that it is starting to look so good, officials from other cities and states might want to go home and build one of their very own.

“We said, ‘Look, you’re right in the middle of history,’ ” Menino’s press secretary Carole Brennan said.

The tactic worked, winning the city that helped launch the American Revolution its first major-party national political convention. But even the most ardent Big Dig boosters admit they are cutting it close.

Project officials say that at best, a maximum of six lanes will be open in the underground portion in the summer of 2004. Old highway off-ramps will be closing that summer, with impressive new traffic jams expected to ensue. Vehicles traveling downtown -- where the convention will be held -- will likely be diverted onto the narrow streets of Boston’s Chinatown, causing more logjams.

And while the whole point of the Big Dig was to tear down the Central Artery, this homely steel creature will remain standing right outside the Fleet Center, where the Democrats will gather.

Piloting a golf cart through the tunnel, Amorello conceded that many in his home state were frustrated by the Big Dig’s logistical headaches and by the staggering price of a road that will cost nearly $2 billion per mile. Amorello, who took over as chairman early this year, blames previous management for failing to disclose actual costs “when they knew full well what they were looking at.”

Massachusetts taxpayers and toll-road drivers are bearing the brunt of Big Dig cost increases. These financial overruns became a major issue in the state’s November gubernatorial election, as Republican Mitt Romney hammered at Democratic state Treasurer Shannon O’Brien for failing to rein in Big Dig expenses. Romney won.

Along with the inflated price tag, the time frame stretched, testing the patience of a populace weary of the never-ending presence of the project. Big Dig officials recently removed a billboard intended to assuage drivers at the south entrance. After a decade or so, the message that “Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day -- If It Was, We’d Have Hired Their Contractors” didn’t seem so funny.

“I don’t really remember life before the Big Dig,” said market researcher Josh Mendelsohn, whose office overlooks the splendid misery of the project-in-progress. Mendelsohn, 26, raised his voice to be heard, as not 25 feet from him men with jackhammers attacked the sidewalk.

“Some days,” Mendelsohn ventured, not very convincingly, “I hardly even notice it.”

Gazing down from the cab of his excavator, Big Dig operating engineer Walter Feugill said he has grown numb to citizen complaints.

“They want it both ways,” said Feugill, one of 5,000 Big Dig workers. “They want us to do the job, yet they don’t want to be inconvenienced.”

As if Big Dig workers didn’t have gripes of their own. “These work spaces are a pain,” Feugill said. “They get smaller and smaller. I can’t even turn my excavator around! Here, you try it.”

But the real drama is the contrast between a post-World War II era when Americans fell in love with automobiles, and a moment in history when citizens are rediscovering cities they formerly fled. Cars ruled, and people came second when the Central Artery rose within honking distance of Faneuil Hall and the old Customs House, once the tallest tower in the Northeast.

As segments of the elevated road begin to topple in the summer of 2004, motor vehicles will disappear underground -- cruising even beneath the city’s subway system -- giving way to parks and pedestrians.

“At the end of the day,” Amorello said, “you can’t put a price tag on what will happen to the quality of life for people and for this city.”