Posted on 07/14/2006 6:19:47 AM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia
Big dig blunders By Herald staff Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - Updated: 10:17 AM EST
1987: Federal money approved for the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project, aka the Big Dig, at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion
1991: Work begins on the Big Dig, which now has a $5 billion price tag
December 1995: Grand opening of the Ted Williams Tunnel
Jan. 12, 1996: Toll collectors in the Ted Williams Tunnel forced to wear respirators because of sickening fumes
January 1996: Officials pump 400,000 gallons of water out of Ted Williams Tunnel air ducts because of persistent leaks
May 1997: Big Dig price tag now $7.78 billion
June 1998: Internal memo circulated by managers at Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff raises concern about potential leaks. Memo made public in 2004. Dig now estimated at $10.4 billion
April 11, 2000: Federal audit reveals that Big Dig managers deliberately misled federal officials about cost overruns for the now-$13 billion project
September 2001: Leaks discovered in I-93 tunnel, pushing back the project’s completion date
March 2003: I-93 northbound Big Dig tunnel opens to traffic
December 2003: I-93 southbound Big Dig tunnel and Zakim Bridge open to traffic
Jan. 11, 2004: Ice buildup in I-93 tunnel causes lane shutdown, resulting in sparodic traffic jams
November 2004: The Herald reports that despite explicit warnings by top Big Dig officials in 1997, contractors failed to correct ineffective waterproofing practices that threatened to undermine construction in some of the most sensitive areas of the project
Sept. 15, 2004: Gusher bursts in the I-93 tunnel
March 2005: Inspections reveal 189 wall panels are defective and there are more than 2,000 leaks in the I-93 tunnels
March 13, 2005: Chunks of ice fall from the Zakim Bridge and land on at least one car, forcing closure of all but two lanes on the bridge
April 4, 2005: Federal Highway Administration deems Big Dig tunnels structurally sound
April 5, 2005: Three cars and an ambulance transporting a patient are badly damaged by falling debris in the I-93 tunnel
May 2005: Attorney General Tom Reilly learns that Big Dig contractors had been secretly patching a leak in the Fort Point Channel tunnel that was spewing 20 gallons of water per minute through cracks.
2005: Estimated cost of the Big Dig Z$14.6 billion and counting
January 2006:Final Big Dig ramp completed
July 10, 2006: Large concrete slab in an I-90 Seaport connector tunnel crashes down on a car, killing one person and shutting down the tunnel in both directions
Cute
Wherever there's lots of money to be made, there's greed, crime and corruption going on. The liberal-demokkkRATs are the worst, but GOPers (think Randy Cunningham, etc) aren't totally infallible either, just a bit less so.
But all the projects which are being compared to the big dig were built by men who were really, really smart.
The government no longer has the wit to engage the best and the brightest to work on its complex engineering projects.
So - the rockets blow up. The tunnels collapse. The dams give way.
What else do you expect?
"Look for the union label."
What was Tony Soprano's cut on this project?
Manhattan schist, to be slightly more precise.
ain't gonna be fixed or done until the Feds directly step in with their own contractors....they all got a good thing going...and it won't stop until a federal prosecutor steps in with RICO indictments.
Depends what portion you are talking about. It's not one tunnel, is't several tunnels constructed using nearly every soft-ground tunneling technique available.
When the NYC tunnels were created, they were in virgin ground. Much of the boston tunnels are under existing highway,partially in fills, partially in clays that woudl not support you if you were to stand on them, and constructed all while maintaining surface traffic.
Yeah, there are some serious screwups, and political crap, but the fact it could even be completed is amazing if you took time to study the entire project.
The contractors are the same the feds use. The entire job was completed under the scope of the FHWA.
It's not the contractors who are crooked. I'd look to the incompetent designers first.
If the final price were known at the start of the project, would the project have gone forward? What offends most people about this project is the insatiable appetite for tax dollars.
And don't go saying nobody could have known that the costs would escalate so much at the beginning of this thing. The overruns were built in from the git-go.
The failures here are political failures.
This is all Fed money...who were the Senators?
THat one is easy - Ted Kennedy and John F-in Kerry for the entire time.
Unfortunate, but power corrupts and knows no real political bounds.
Didn't we used to have the best engineering schools and the brightest engineering students? Is this yet one more sad example of the dumbing down of our educational system?
No project of this scope and complexity has ever been attempted anywhere in the world. Ever.
In terms of current tools and technology available, it is difficult for me to believe that the big dig was more complex than the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and several other major projects. One of the things I think has changed significantly is that the people who ran these projects were goal oriented, and realized that there was a legitimate chance of failure. Today, I think there's an assumption of success in any endeavor, and quite honestly, I'm sometimes surprised at how d@mned little many people care about the success of their projects. Basically, we've built so many things successfully, that we often "mail it in", assuming that someone else will fix the problems down the road, or that the short-cuts, use of unqualified personnel because they fit a demographic or have greased the right political palms, and problems will be absorbed into the overall project and not affect the final outcome.
A friend of mine who worked for the Dallas Fire Department commented that the city of Dallas really didn't care if the fire department was capable of fighting fires. He said the Assistant Chiefs were reviewed once every six months, and that part of their salary increase was based on whether or not they had developed a new program or not. According to him, all of the Assistant Chiefs would dutifully begin and implement programs every six months, send out memos, and then forget about them. In short, he said that none of the upper management of the fire department cared about the fire department, because the city manager and the council didn't care about whether the fire department could fight fires. They asked about diversity, progressive programs, community outreach, public relations and whether there were an adequate number of female firefighters, but that none of them really cared if the fire department was capable of fighting fires. Part of what has made me cynical is that I have spent a lot of my life working for governmental entities, and have found that frequently, the biggest battle in getting your job done is dealing with the governmental entity that's supposed to be supporting you.
I suspect if you look through the history of the big dig, you'll find that it was a conglomeration of petty personal interests, and few people really cared whether or not the project was ultimately successful.
Sure, those were great accomplishments, but none rivaled the complexity. The biggest fat of the canal was overcoming mosquito's. The Boulder dam is friggin amazing, but they really didn't do much new stuff, just a lot of it. As for the GG bridge, Roebling did one just like it 50 years earlier, just not quite as big.
Nobody ibn the US, for sure, and i can't think of anywhere else (and i study this stuff) has ever put 3 miles of tunnell directly under an existing elevated highway while maintaining surface traffic. Nor has anyone shoved a tunnel 5' under 11 side-by-side continuously operating railroad tracks without interrupting service, and maintaining a 1/2" inch rail elevation tolerance. Also, I know nobody has ever built a 12-lane wide tunnel and interchange sstem on clays so weak if you set a cup of coffee on it, in 15 minutes it would be gone.
Never before has a highway tunnel crossed within 2' of an existing 100 year old underwater subaway tunnel, that if deflected more tahn 3" would allow the ocean to flood teh majority of the cities subway (and electrical, and other utility) system.
All this work was done whilst still keeping every single business open, and every roadyway open in one of the worlds busiest cities. It has been likened to performing open heart surgery on a patient running the Boston Marathon.
I hate the cost overruns and political bullshit as much as anyone, but the project itself is really anamazing feat. I consider myself a hardcore conservative, so yeah, that part tears at me, but the project itself and teh people that made it happen are amazing. I don't mean the people whose names you see, either, because they did crap!
Okay, now I see what you're saying. It does make me wonder about the wisdom of the task in the first place. It still makes more sense than rebuilding New Orleans, but you're describing some things that would make it seem like it would almost be an accident if it worked properly. The weak clays, for example, would have to shift over time, and there's no telling how far they had to drive supports to bedrock. If roof portions are already collapsing, it gives me visions of the end of "Paint Your Wagon," except it wouldn't be nearly as humorous if portions of the tunnel collapsed under the elevated highway.
The weak clays were compensated for, albeit at great expense, and the rof sections are NOT structural. Those will not fail for several thousand years, trust me. Even if it was substandard concrete, it's still far better than that used in the Colliseum in Rome.
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