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Hosted by: Dick Gordon
Show Originally Aired: 3/22/2005 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
Big Dig
Cars enter a tunnel portion of Boston's Central Artery project (AP) Email to friend
Boston's Big Dig is the most expensive public works project in U.S. history. The transformation of the city's elevated highways into underground tunnels topped with that impressive suspension bridge has cost nearly 15 billion dollars. The taxpayers in Massachusetts and across the country are picking up a big piece of the cost.
The bill today is four times what was projected and it hasn't even been settled yet. There's another problem. The tunnels leak -- a lot. Engineers who've inspected the project now say they can't vouch for its safety.
We'll take a closer look at how the Big Dig came to be and where it all will end. As the costs continue to climb, people are starting to wonder if the grand thinking behind the Big Dig or any such megaproject, is worth it, after all. Digging in, on the Dig.
Raphael Lewis, Boston Globe reporter who has covered the Big Dig since 2000
David Luberoff, Executive Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and co-author of "Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment."
