Big Dig afternoon edition: Tragedy, awful commute and Matt Amorello

Breaking news: Mitt Romney to try to oust Matt Amorello; says nobody can feel safe in the tunnel system right now: "I don't have any confidence in this individual."

Jennifer reports it took her three hours to get to the airport this morning and then to work.

EnuhCorK took an alternate route:

... Many drivers cut into my lane without any acknowledgement throughout my trip...I just let it go. Today is a bad day for the city. It marks another realization that this project cost way too much money for the job to be finished cheaply. ...

Tim Lavallee usually commutes through the Big Dig:

... The easy thing for me to write would be, "I knew it would happen." And, perhaps, that's even a roundabout way of writing it.

For right now, though, I'm going to pray for the family, and try to find another way to work.

Ryan McGee reports the commute on public transportation was little better, because the T didn't scramble to accomodate all the extra commuters who would try the train instead of their cars:

... Instead, every first-timer on my commuter rail had this look of, "See, THIS is why I never do this!" The everyday riders resented the newbies, and the people collecting fares couldn’t even get through the cars to get money due to overcrowded cars. In short, the MBTA lost money and lost customers by maintaining the status quo. ...

Scared Monkeys wonders why Modern Continental used those ties in just that one small section of tunnel.

James Joiner blames the Republicans who oversaw the project:

... Stop the political bullshit already! This is A republican project! The people do not matter! Doing the right thing does not matter! Political and corruptive gain for their interests is all that matter! I have been warning people about this for years! This tunnel will totally fail eventually like everything else these Repugs are in charge of. ...

Kevin, though, blames unions. Down in Texas, they blame John Kerry.

WRKO talk host Moe Lauzier blames everybody who refused to listen to early warnings on WRKO.

SleepingPoliceman says Amorello has to go:

Workers are in the process of removing 100 ceiling panels from a 200-foot stretch of tunnel and hope to have traffic moving again by noon Wednesday, Amorello said. A special tool arrived this morning that can remove five ceiling panels at a time.

And that special tool ... is Matt Amorello.

Dan Kennedy: This is an awful tragedy, so I hesitate to suggest that anything good might come out of this:

But now that someone has actually been killed, we may finally get the criminal investigations and private lawsuits we need to find out why our brand-new, $14.6 billion highway project is leaking, crumbling and endangering public safety.

DBK notes assurances from Big Dig officials that the rest of the system is safe:

... I am sure the woman who was killed feels much better now, knowing that the thing is completely safe. ...

Earlier:
Big Collapse.