Talk:Big Dig/Archive 1

Name
"Official"?? "The Big Dig" is the official name of the project?? Certainly it is the common colloquial name of the project, and the name used in the Boston Globe, but usually the official name is one that is known only to those who dig out legal documents --- acts of Congress and the like, and is not nearly so poetic. Michael Hardy 19:04 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

http://www.masspike.com/bigdig/index.html It appears to be the name MassPike Transit Authority uses, too. Official? I doubt it's listed in legal documents, but this is about as official as I would require. That's just me.

The official name is the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CAT).

The orignial name, now shortended was Central Artery/Third Tunnel Project.15:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)dsjochrist

A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
Removed Panama Canal comparison. It's rather meaningless unless it they are in inflation adjusted figures.

Roadrunner 04:30, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Requests
Is there a map of the project somewhere? That would really explain things better. A link to the map would also be fine if there isn't one in the public domain.

There is a map publishe by the MTA here: http://www.masspike.com/img/big_dig/multimedia/maps/completion_lg.jpg

re last edit
O.K., so the last para. of the lead now looks better, but is it more/less/the same in accuracy? Whoever wrote "in '03 dollars" wrote it that way for a reason, and in addition the current phrasing makes it appear that some larger project has superseded the Big Dig.Sfahey 23:40, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Logo
IWBRNI someone would upload the original CA/T project logo. The project became well-known in the early days for its (now mostly abandoned) standards of graphic design; the logo and associated blue-and-yellow dust barriers and signage became quite familiar to Bostonians over the decade they were in use. 18.26.0.18 05:24, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

some updates for you all to hack at
I've added substantial information on deep background on things like the Inner Belt, the Leverett Connector, Scheme Z, and the community activism that surrounded the project over the years. That said, much of it could stand for considerable enlargement and/or breaking out of this article into separate articles. I've also added a couple of web references (somehow this article doesn't seem complete without the MIT/Rotch Library website linked at least). Might be some POV to clean up, certainly some misdirected data. I hope I haven't made too much hash out of the article. Haikupoet 06:44, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would agree that your background on the Inner Belt and the highway construction moratorium possesses substantial POV, as it implies the moratorium was a poor decision and that further construction would have solved the congestion problem in Boston (it may very well have worsened surface street congestion). Those of us in the area who support neo-urbanism regard the whole situation as a narrowly-avoided disaster; just last year there were fliers posted throughout Cambridgeport, along the 695 route, saying "look what almost happened." All this conflict belongs in a separate article, of course, but this one should be modified towards NPOV and make it clear that it was the express highway/freeway system specifically that was/is deficient. The Pike extension is a worthy mention (and should go into the separate article as well). Good reference here --Jnik 21:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually to be perfectly honest I do think the moratorium was a good idea -- the design of the Master Plan was wrong to begin with, since it didn't take into account the neighborhood disruption it would create (and the environmental issues for parts of it were a little dicey as well) -- the Inner Belt in particular seems to have been very badly thought out, though the Northeast Expressway and Volpe's version of I-90 had some pretty bad issues as well (like gutting Cambridge in the case of Rt 2/3 and stopping several miles short of downtown for no obvious reason in the case of the Western Expressway). Feel free to make any changes you think are appropriate. Essentially what I was trying to get at was that there was a problem that needed solving, the solution on the table was rightly killed, but the problem still existed and had to be taken into account during the planning of the Dig. Haikupoet 01:11, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and tried to maintain the thrust of your work while removing what I perceived as POV. See what you think. --Jnik 20:18, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Six lanes?
I could have sworn the elevated Artery was only two through lanes in each direction, not three. Rather hard to check now, of course. Given that the tunnels are only three through lanes this wouldn't have been much of a capacity-building project. Someone want to correct me before I change it? --Jnik 20:23, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It absolutely was six lanes. You may be confused because exit 26 was operated as an "exit only" in the last years of the old structure, so entering traffic from Leverett Circle did not need to merge.  Even today, of course, there's a section of the Lower Deck that narrows to two general-purpose lanes, but there's still the HOV lane just over the barrier to the east.  There was also a period where only two through lanes were available in the Dewey Square Tunnel due to construction sequencing.  121a0012 21:28, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

you can see all six lanes on google earth

At the time?!
"At the time, the Big Dig was the most expensive single highway project in American history." - Has there been something that has eclipsed the $14.6 billion price tag of this project?! Hbdragon88 07:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)