'Big Dig' is a 'Big Disaster'

[Regis Philbin]

Your tax dollars at work...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...ig_Travel.html

Friday, July 14, 2006

Tourists, commuters abandon Big Dig routes

By MARK JEWELL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BOSTON -- As Wisconsin teacher Scott Wallace contemplated how to get into the city from Worcester for a harbor cruise, he had a couple of options: He could zip to the downtown pier using Big Dig roadways, or jump on a commuter train. He chose the train.

After a woman was killed Monday night when 12 tons of concrete fell from a tunnel ceiling onto her car, tourists are reconsidering how to get around Boston at the height of the historic city's tourism season. For many travelers, fears of traffic congestion triggered by the closure loom as large as safety worries.

"It was for the convenience," Wallace, 45, said about his Thursday trip. "But even without considering that, for safety's sake I wouldn't want to have driven in."

Tourists and commuters alike are abandoning Big Dig routes for trains, ferries and even shuttle flights. The subway system has been running extra trains, and the Boston Red Sox urged fans to take public transportation to games at Fenway Park.

Tourists doubts about transportation pose a challenge for Boston's tourism industry, which hopes to draw 17 million visitors this year.

The Big Dig highway project buried Interstate 93 through the downtown area, eliminating an old overhead highway, and extended the Massachusetts Turnpike to Logan International Airport via a new harbor tunnel. The section that was closed after the concrete collapse is a connector to the harbor tunnel.

[db44]

The Dig was a disaster when I lived in Boston... Ten-plus years ago.

[Paulie]

Oh, db44...

Even though it's officially complete (except for the parks projects that are part of it), it's still a disaster.

Paulie