March 18, 2008

Boston residents anticipate urban transformation as ‘Big Dig’ officially ends

Boston

In the gloom of winter, it is hard to see potential amid the strips of brown grass and pavement that lie where this city’s hulking elevated highway used to be.

But with the US$15 billion construction project known as the Big Dig officially over as of last month, the promised transformation of downtown Boston — not just its traffic patterns but also its look, its feel, its very essence — finally seems within reach, according to a report in The New York Times.

Expectations are high, and for good reason. The Big Dig drained not only public coffers but also the psyche of Boston as it replaced the traffic-choked highway with sleek tunnels over nearly two decades. The construction forced hellish traffic jams and proved faulty, with the new tunnels springing hundreds of leaks and worse. Four workers died during the construction, and in 2006, concrete ceiling panels in one tunnel collapsed and killed a woman in a car.

Where the highway used to be is now a milelong green space with benches, fountains and fledgling trees ready to welcome pedestrians come spring.

Where the highway cut off waterfront neighborhoods from the rest of the city, there is now a clear view to Boston Harbor, the Italian North End, the New England Aquarium and the wharfs that surround it.

Yet problems persist. The Big Dig was one of the most expensive public works projects in U.S. history, and money for finishing touches is scarce. The real estate downturn has threatened development along the corridor, and the new parks, skinny and hemmed in by busy three-lane surface roads, present their own hurdles.

Lacklustre fund-raising and other obstacles have stalled plans for four new buildings along the greenway — a museum, a cultural center, a visitors center and a YMCA. — and a glassed-in garden planned for its southern tip has been scrapped.

While the project was a godsend for drivers — a study by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority found it cut the average trip through Boston to 2.8 minutes from 19.5 — residents are looking to the US$100 million worth of aesthetic changes for more proof the agony was worth it. Advocates of the project, meanwhile, are pleading for more patience.

“Everything is so supercharged around this project,” said Anthony Flint, director of public affairs for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a research group in Cambridge. “But it’s a delicate balance. You want to think of this as the signature space of Boston, but at the same time you have to allow it to evolve.”

That evolution has definitely begun.

Along the new park space, called the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, buildings that long ago sealed off windows overlooking the highway are reopening them. New housing, shops and offices are in the works.

“It’s going to be way better, I think, than anything I dreamed of,” said Frederick Salvucci, a former Massachusetts transportation secretary who helped conceive of the Big Dig in the 1970s and championed it through multiple delays and cost overruns.

Mr. Salvucci and others hope the new corridor, replacing what he called “a big ugly slash in the city,” will eventually rival cherished public spaces like Las Ramblas in Barcelona and the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

The city considered it a major victory when, in 1991, the state decided that 75 percent of the land created as a result of the Big Dig must be left as open space. But while the greenway is divided into four parks totaling 10.5 acres, all are limited in design and function because they are built over tunnels and surrounded by traffic.

The southernmost park, bordering Chinatown, has a red gateway at its entrance, fan-shaped paving stones and bamboo plantings. The next, which greets commuters arriving at South Station, was supposed to have the glassed-in garden but now will be regular garden space with little pavement.

The next parcel, facing the aquarium, has a circular plaza, a large fountain and tall glass lights that glow purple at night. And the northernmost park, connecting downtown with the North End’s famous restaurants, has tables, chairs and a long, bench-lined pergola that will be covered with vines. More than 1,300 trees have been planted along the greenway.

DCN News Services

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