The Globe reports the latest on the plummeting light fixture in the Big Dig: Transportation officials withheld news for a month and it turns out the "stem to stern" investigation ordered by the Romney administration didn't include actually disassembling any of the fixtures to see if they were rotting from within, which, it turns out, some were.
After one of the 110-lb. fixtures plunged to the roadway last month, the Herald reports.
No, not the Big Dig and the Greenway. The dam at the mouth of the Charles River. Eric Papetti draws the parallel between that Big Dig of the turn of the century (the 20th century, that is), with today's big turn-of-the-century project. He quotes from Karl Haglund's Inventing the Charles River:
The New Center for Arts and Culture is the latest in a string of institutions to pull out of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the Globe reports. Apparently, backers were able to raise just a quarter of the $80 million in projected costs. It joins the Horticultural Society's Garden under the Glass and the first proposal for the Boston Museum on the scrapheap.
The Globe documents the death of seven motorists - "most of them gruesomely dismembered" - due to the railings intended to keep maintenance workers from falling into traffic.
Stephen Heuser acknowledges the Central Artery had to come down, but, darnit, he misses the muscular exurberance of infrastructure that wasn't afraid to admit it was infrastructure. Yes, really.
Via Commonwealth Unbound.
Trailer for Mel Gibson's "Edge of Darkness," which features follows a man as he drives home to Roslindale in a typical afternoon commute through the O'Neill Tunnel (via Sam Baltrusis):
Warns it will shut down tunnels, highways it controls inside 128 if anti-toll people get a restraining order in court today. You know, like the entire Big Dig complex.
$15 billion and what do you get? A tunnel that's already too small for some trucks, that's what. The Globe reports the driver of a bigger than big rig smashed into an overhead sign in the Ted Williams Tunnel, then just kept going, at least, until some staties caught up with him on the Expressway in Dorchester.
Kevin Cullen does a nice job explaining how a company that paid a $50-million fine for supplying substandard concrete for the Big Dig is now getting state road contracts again.
This time it's from a group of motorists who want the return of all money the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has funneled to the Big Dig, Blue Mass. Group reports. The Massachusetts Turnpike Equity Trust says:
We have organized a trust approved by the Middlesex Probate Court that is open to any MassPike toll payer who has paid tolls at Route 128, Allston/Brighton, Sumner/Callahan Tunnels, or the Ted Williams Tunnel. We are trying to remedy and change the unfair toll collection policies of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority documents indicate that up to 58 cents of every dollar collected on the Boston Extension (from route 128 into Boston), and the Sumner/Callahan and Ted Williams tunnels is unlawfully diverted to pay for the Central Artery project ("Big Dig"). We toll payers are fed up with our toll monies being diverted unfairly to pay for the costs associated with the "Big Dig" - an unlawful tax that has unfairly burdened toll payers and bankrupted the Turnpike Authority. We urge other toll payers to join us in our fight for the return of our unlawfully expropriated toll monies.
Their lawyer is Jan Schlichtman, the guy who led the Woburn toxic-chemicals-in-the-water lawsuit.
Our new transportation secretary, appointed in the middle of a snowstorm for minimum effect, tells the Globe he doesn't know what "Big Dig culture" means:
When asked yesterday whether he was a part of the Big Dig culture, Aloisi said: "I don't even know what that phrase means."
At Blue Mass. Group, David provides a handy little primer for Mr. Aloisi - whose new boss made getting rid of "Big Dig culture" part of his campaign, concludes:
... The unanswered question -- for Aloisi, for the Governor, and for all of us -- is whether Aloisi is the right guy to navigate the state's transportation bureaucracy out of that culture, and into the new era of reform that we've been promised. For all of our sakes, I sure hope so.
Matt Laskowski stitched together an interesting aerial view using some Microsoft Live overhead images to show how things have changed since the Central Artery was taken down.
Heradl reports: Bernard Cohen quits, Patrick looks ready to appoint former Turnpike Authority lawyer James Aloisi to deal with financial mess left over from Big Dig. Oh, and the T.
Channel 4 employee has terrifying encounter with some long black thing hanging from the tunnel ceiling this morning. They could call it Diggy.
Associated Press reports on the settlement between the family of Milena Del Valle of Jamaica Plain and 15 entities, including contractors and the turnpike authority over her wrongful death in 2006.
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