archBOSTON ARCHIVE

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Big Dig. Done.
(Well, almost)

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | January 8, 2006

By the end of the month, after more than 14 years and $14.6 billion, barriers will disappear, variable message signs will switch off, and a two-lane slab of suspended concrete connecting the Interstate 93 south tunnel with Albany Street will open, marking the end of major road construction for the Big Dig.

With that debut?which will pass without ceremony?substantial completion of the project will be achieved, and the Big Dig, part of our lives for so long, will begin its wind-down.

More than a year of cleanup and detail work will follow: Workers will put in curbs and sidewalks and install utilities; they will plant 1,000 trees and complete the parkland along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. But by Jan. 31 all the project's roads and bridges will be in place, and Boston drivers can begin getting acquainted with the finished project.
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DarkFenX · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1111

I can't wait. With these parks, we can attract tourist and increase money flowing into the city. And just in time, too. There was a proposal (or maybe it's already approved) that Logan may establish a direct route to China. This can bring more tourist and may help increase the population here. I just hope the city picked the right designs for the Greenway and add Gateway Center as a finishing touch.

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Big Dig finally nears endgame
Opening of exit ramp marks its 'substantial completion'

January 14, 2006

Shortly after 2 p.m. yesterday, the Big Dig reached a big milestone, opening its last highway ramp after 14 1/2 years of construction, delays, cost overruns, and inconvenience.

Exit 20B off Interstate 93 south leading to Albany Street, the South End, and South Boston, is a minor ramp but marks ''substantial completion" of the $14.6 billion Central Artery and Tunnel project.

There will not be any more major construction around the Big Dig, but there will still be work on surface roads atop the tunnels, including realigning Atlantic Avenue near Rowe's Wharf next week. Also still to be done are the building of pedestrian bridges across the Charles River and the final assembly of the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

''The project is a success," declared Matthew J. Amorello, chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Asked if after the leaks, cost overruns, and the politics, he would do it all again, he said, ''absolutely."

Amorello said repairs to fix leaks in the slurry walls are wrapping up and that routine nighttime closures that shuttered the tunnels for most of their existence would cease at the end of the month. The project, which is to carry 245,000 vehicles a day by 2010, will complete all work by spring 2007, he said.

MAC DANIEL
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Ron Newman · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1007

The last time I looked (which admittedly was a few months ago), there was still a piece of old Central Artery elevated ramp next to International Place, and another one behind and left of the FleetC .. I mean, Boston Garden. Are these both still standing?

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Ron Newman · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1007

'Independence Place'?

International Place is one one side of the Artery (the side with the ramp), and Independence Wharf is on the other side, but ...

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Ron Newman · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1007

If this really is the last piece to be demolished, it deserves some small, dignified ceremony. The lobby of International Place would be a good place to hold it.

PaulC · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 172

When the big dig was first planned Fred Salvucci asked that International Place be positioned about a foot west or else the artery project wouldn't happen. Don Chiofaro refused and I would guess that the big dig had to settle for a less desirable alignment(probably less safe tighter curve).

Every time I hear about bad new for Don Chiofaro I cheer. I wouldn't be surprised if they avoid improving Don Chiofaro's property by taking the ramp down till the last minute.

tocoto · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 181

Not that I like Don C., but moving his project a foot may have set him back years in the permitting process, even to the point that there would be no IP there now.

Ron Newman · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1007

To allow building of International Place, the state had to build a new 'High Street' offramp to replace the old 1950s-vintage one. The old ramp had turned sharply right and actually ran elevated along part of High Street. I assume that the developer had to pay the cost of this, but I don't know for sure.

The little bit of ramp that remains to be demolished is part of this relatively new replacement.

(Forcing a tighter curve inside the tunnel doesn't seem to me like a bad thing, in any event.)

Ron Newman · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1007

Here's a page about the ramp relocation. I didn't realize, or had forgotten, that it happened after the first part of International Place was built. It was done in order to allow the second phase of International Place development.

The photo on this page shows both the new ramp (probably still under construction) and the original ramp (curving off to the right). It says the ramp relocation was completed in 1990, which was just before the Big Dig began.

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Commuters may face downtown headaches

January 30, 2006

The roadways of the Big Dig may be complete, but Boston commuters will still have traffic changes to deal with this morning.

Atlantic Avenue has been realigned into its permanent postion, with the northbound surface roadway shifted east between Summer Street near South Station and India Street near Harbor Towers.

The biggest change will be between the Moakley Bridge and India Street, where through traffic and drivers headed toward the Moakley Bridge or South Boston should stay to the right. Those headed to the on-ramp for Interstate 93 north should bear left.

Through traffic on Atlantic Avenue will be moved to directly in front of Rowes Wharf.

Over the weekend, the city also started emergency sewer repairs at the intersection of St. James Avenue and Berkeley Street. The work is scheduled to last three weeks, and substantial traffic and parking impacts are expected by Transportation Department officials.

For further information or questions, call 617 635-4-BTD.

COURTNEY C. GROSS
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statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Big Dig benefit: A quicker downtown trip
Turnpike Authority report cites business gain

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | February 15, 2006

The $14.6-billion Big Dig project has cut the average trip through the center of Boston from 19.5 minutes to 2.8 minutes and has increased by 800,000 the number of people in Eastern Massachusetts who can now get to Logan International Airport in 40 minutes or less, according to a report that is scheduled to be released today.

The report is the first to analyze and link the drive-time benefits of the project to its economic impact since the Big Dig built its final onramp last month. The report relies on data obtained since milestones were completed in 2003, such as opening of the Ted Williams Tunnel to all traffic and opening of the northbound and southbound Interstate 93 tunnels.

Officials at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which manages the project, released the executive summary portion of the report to the Globe yesterday.

The improved drive times are projected to result in savings of $167 million annually: $24 million in vehicle operating costs and $143 million in time. The report estimates that the Big Dig will generate $7 billion in private investment and will create tens of the thousands of jobs in the South Boston waterfront area and along the I-93 corridor.

The report was authored by the Economic Development Research Group, Inc., a Boston-based consulting firm, at the behest of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which paid about $100,000 for the research, much of which was gathered from agencies such as the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization, officials said. ''We had nothing to do with how they analyzed it," said the authority spokeswoman, Mariellen Burns.

The report is to be made public this morning at a quarterly board meeting of the Artery Business Committee at the World Trade Center in South Boston.

The Artery Business Committee, the business community's voice on matters about the Big Dig, also reviewed the report to confirm the projected benefits.

The report issued several findings:

The project has reduced by 62 percent the number of daily vehicle hours traveled on both the central artery, the airport tunnels, and Storrow Drive eastbound.

Speeds on Storrow Drive east to I-93 north have improved from 4 to 21 miles per hour.

Afternoon peak travel times along the length of the I-93 northbound through downtown have dropped from 16 to 3.1 minutes.

''This is the first report done since the opening of the project, and it demonstrates that those commitments and promises made back in the 1980s were true," the authority chairman, Matthew J. Amorello, said yesterday.

The report says that one of the most far-reaching impacts the project has had involves giving more people faster access to Logan.

When the turnpike extension connecting Interstate 90 with Logan Airport, opened fully in 2003 and allowed drivers from the South Shore to avoid snaking through downtown Boston to the Callahan tunnel, the number of people who found themselves within 40 minutes of drive time of the airport grew by 800,000, to a total of about 2.5 million.

That extension, coupled with the opening of the Ted Williams Tunnel, resulted in less traffic on the Callahan and Sumner tunnels, where average weekday speeds increased from 13 miles per hour to 36 miles per hour.

The report projects that the highway improvements will attract $7 billion in private investment, adding more than 43,000 jobs along the I-93 corridor and in the South Boston Seaport District.

''Looking toward the future, the pattern of new development in the Back Bay that originally derived from the Turnpike extension project is being repeated in South Boston and along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway as a result of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project," the report says. The turnpike extension from Newton to Boston was completed in 1965.

The report estimates that property tax revenues from Big Dig development on the South Boston Waterfront, where large parcels remain undeveloped, will equal 9 to 11 percent of the city's 2005 tax base of $1.13 billion when the waterfront is fully developed as planned, in about 20 years.

The wages paid to construction workers along the South Boston Waterfront are predicted to yield $5 million to $6 million annually in state income tax and sales tax revenue, as long as development continues.

Analyzing developments built, under construction or being planned, researchers said completion of the Big Dig will mean several benefits. Among them:

About 7,700 new housing units.

About 1,000 affordable housing units.

About 10 million square feet of office and retail space.

About 2,600 hotel rooms.

The executive summary did not explain in detail how the researchers reached their conclusions.

The summary refers to the full report for explanations on how their calculations were done.

Richard A. Dimino, president of the Artery Business Committee, said report ''demonstrates a wonderful story about how Boston's new central highway system sets the stage for economic growth going into the next millennium."

''It's been over 20 years since anybody has tried to take a thorough look at the economic impacts of the Central Artery/Tunnel project" he said, noting that the last economic impact statement was done in the 1980s before the project began.

''What's important and impressive . . . is that this combines the mobility benefits with the land development and economic benefits.

''While we all understood that the project would enhance the trip to downtown Boston through downtown Boston and to Logan," he added, ''I think the report take it a step further and articulates the opportunities for the economic future of Boston, as well."

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.
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statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Beyond Big Dig, jams continue

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | February 16, 2006

Travel times through the Big Dig may have improved, but for many commuters and observers, roadways just outside of the $14.6 billion project have some catching up to do as traffic jams continue.

A Big Dig report on the transportation and economic impacts of the project, released yesterday by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, details impressive cuts in travel time through downtown Boston. The peak travel time on Interstate 93 north has dropped from 19.5 minutes on the old elevated Central Artery to 2.8 minutes in the new tunnel, an 85 percent improvement. Southbound, the trip times have dropped from 8.5 minutes to 2.8 minutes. The eastbound trip on the Massachusetts Turnpike to Logan International Airport has dropped from 16.2 minutes to 4.2 minutes, thanks to regular traffic using the Ted Williams Tunnel.

But a day after the report was released, drivers had mixed reactions to the results, and said congestion north, south, and west of the city is horrendous.

''No doubt the Big Dig has caused improvements, but it often feels like the improvement is the difference between a migraine and a throbbing headache," said Brian Carmichael, 45, of Andover, whose morning commute to Boston via the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority bus always slows around Roosevelt Circle in Medford. He said traffic is often stop and go for miles into Boston, which he blames on a merge near Sullivan Square.

On I-93 north, traffic often backs from the northern end of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge all the way to the interchange of Route 128/95 and I-93 in Woburn and Stoneham. Southbound on I-93, the commute frequently crawls from the Southeast Expressway to the Route 3 split in Braintree, according to drive times from Smart Route Systems Inc., the traffic monitoring firm. Westbound traffic on the turnpike also clogs during the afternoon commute home. In addition, Smart Route officials have said congestion is building in some of Boston's suburbs surrounding the Interstate 495 corridor.

''We fulfilled our commitments," said Turnpike Authority Chairman Matthew J. Amorello. ''When you're off this new road system, you're on the same roads that were there in the 1980s and we need to address that collectively as a Commonwealth."

Donna L. Jenkins, 49, of Lowell said her morning commute to Massachusetts General Hospital, normally 40 minutes long, takes her 70 to 80 minutes. ''I wonder, 'Where is this traffic improvement they speak of?' " she said. Her commute home starts at a crawl, from the Zakim Bridge to Montvale Avenue in Stoneham.

''I consider it a banner moment if the speedometer even approaches 30 miles per hour before I get to Route 128," she said. ''Perhaps the trip through downtown is speedier, but as the saying goes, getting there is half the battle."

Frederick P. Salvucci, who served as state transportation secretary in the 1980s, said ''the project doubled the capacity that is able to cross the harbor and river, but it did not double the capacity of Interstate 93 back in Medford, or down in Quincy. You improved the center, and that's good, but we will see congestion continue to dominate the peak-period flows outside of the project." He said the solution is not necessarily more road expansion projects but a solid investment in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

''If we want these improved traffic conditions to continue, we have to make it more attractive to use the MBTA for people in larger numbers," he said.

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.
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statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

ablarc · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

^ Them's good words. Now where's the action?

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Last chunk of Central Artery set to vanish

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | March 2, 2006

The last chunk of the elevated Central Artery, which supported the frustrations of 160,000 drivers a day for decades, is being demolished this week, expected to disappear into memory as early as today.

Workers with cutting torches and jackhammers on Tuesday attacked a four-car length section of the old southbound offramp to High Street, which almost rubs against the brown granite of the Two International Place office tower.

It was an isolated chunk of the roadway left standing like a museum piece months after the interstate highway it served had been removed -- replaced with tunnels and opened to traffic over the past few years.

Speaking yesterday to cameras and a small crowd, with the roar of destruction behind him, Matthew J. Amorello, chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, said the artifact remained so long because a sensitive NStar power substation lay underneath. It was not, he said, left lingering because state officials are still smarting from the two-year battle they waged with International Place developer Donald J. Chiofaro in the late 1980s over where the ramp would be built.

An old High Street ramp from the 1950s was in the way of construction for Chiofaro's second tower, 35-story Two International Place. After a lengthy period of spirited negotiations and threats between Chiofaro and state transportation secretary Fred Salvucci, the developer agreed to pay $10 million to relocate the ramp.

Before the resolution, one cartoon depicted the ramp running right through a bar in the lobby of the sparkling new tower.

Chiofaro said his investment ultimately showed the importance of spending money for the public good. ''We made a big bet when we agreed to build the new ramp," Chiofaro, who was traveling yesterday, said in a statement by e-mail. ''Now it has really paid off, and we think the Greenway will be a treasure for us and for future generations."

The 400-foot-long, 22-foot-wide ramp opened only 16 years ago, when the official cost of the Big Dig was $4.4 billion. (With the project almost complete, it is now $14.6 billion.) Michael Lewis, Big Dig project director, said the ramp cost about $40 million to take down.

The structure was built asymmetrically, its columns resting near the building, on the foundations of International Place's garage. That left room for Big Dig machinery to excavate for new tunnels in the direction of Rowes Wharf and Boston Harbor.

Two International Place was erected only inches away, opening in 1993. Chiofaro is now consulting architects and interior designers, contemplating two new restaurants in the stately marble lobbies of his towers. They would overlook a section of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway set to house a new culture and performing arts center.

The Palladian windows in 46-story One International Place, which was designed by the noted architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1987, rubbed many the wrong way, so City Hall used the wrestling match over the ramp to force Chiofaro to redesign the second tower more to its liking.

Salvucci yesterday recalled the scrappy battle but declared the ramp ''a good solution" to ''a pretty serious conflict."

''Don Chiofaro and I ended up friends after the early fisticuffs were over," said Salvucci, now a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Salvucci said in a telephone interview that he had wanted to take a picture before the ramp disappeared. Reinforcing his reputation as a transportation fanatic, he recalled proposing marriage to his wife in 1963 as he parked his car under the old High Street ramp, on his way to dinner in the North End.

John J. Kennedy, a senior principal at Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., helped design the ramp in 1989 and was on hand yesterday to see chunks of concrete fall from webs of reinforcing steel. The ramp won an award for excellence in engineering in 1991.

One steel column, a remnant of the elevated Central Artery, was left standing, near Quincy Market, said Kennedy's colleague, Michael R. Sutton. ''They repainted it," he said. ''It's street art or something."

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.
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At this rate, this damn project is going to keep doing 'one last thing' for the next ten years. Rolling Eyes

JoeGallows · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 96

DowntownDave · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 374

BUH - Bye

PaulC · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 172

Central Artery Update presentation:

[url]http://www.masspike.com/user-cgi/news.cgi?dbkey=203&type=General News&src=generalnews[/url]

user_188 · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 8

Not to say that I would like to go back, but I do miss the exceptional views one had on the old central artery.

I think the new highway is a major improvement. Now if only the surface streets could become more efficient.

Charliemta · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 81

Here's another presentation from the Turnpike Authority on the Big Dig. I like the Bullfinch area, but the Wharf District and the new museums are abominations. Also, the Horticultural area is a bloody waste.

Link: http://www.masspike.com/bigdig/updates/spring2006.html

Scott · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 163

The New Center for the Arts reminds me of the old Trailways station. The way it ignores the arch at Rowes Wharf and comes in at a strange angle to it, detracts from a much better building.

With the Boston Museum, the exposed brick from the sheared face next door will always stand in stark contrast to this building. Great place for a museum but I cannot see this design becoming an instant landmark like the ICA.

Ron Newman · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 1007

Since everyone seems to object to the interaction of the New Center with Rowes Wharf, I bet there will be a redesign. Remember, no permits have been granted yet.

ckb · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 126

On the other hand, the arch is already on the off-axis from both High and Broad streets. And my take on the renderings show that the New Center just comes to the edge of the arch.

I don't particularly care for the design, myself, but the "blockage" of the Rowe's Wharf arch isn't top in my list of objections.

tocoto · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 181

Merper · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 227

city planners?

sometimes i wonder if Boston even has any.

ckb · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 126

While perusing the old Big Dig site for something else, I discovered this new map, which I haven't seen posted before. Helps clarify the orientation of a few exit ramps, at least for me. Hopefully the online mapping applications can catch up soon.

http://www.masspike.com/pdf/maps/I93map.pdf

PaulC · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 172

Turnpike anoucement:

http://www.masspike.com/bigdig/parks/chinatownpk.html

some pics:

http://www.crja.com/chi.htm