I hope our GTA city politicians are fucking listening to this shit. A few years ago people were talking about burying our Gardiner Express Way, citing that it was a big eye sore (6 lane raised highway) and that burying it would be the best way to go (and cost ~2 billion).
I even burst out laughing when one “traffic engineer” cited that traffic would be fine without the Gardiner. You know, the only one of two public highways spanning Toronto (north and south) that I take daily that STALLS both ways in the morning and evening.
I swear politicians should all be thrown in jail after their term is up to make up for all the shit they do
No parks to speak of yet, at least not in the areas I pass through. But the view from North Station is now breath-taking. For the 50-plus years I’ve been entering Boston from that train station, there’d always been the great green hulking framework of the elevated highway and the dingy structure supporting the elevated railway filling the skyline between the station and downtown.
And now they’re gone. Over the last couple of weeks the final segments have been torched apart, craned down, and removed. What had been a cramped street passing in front of the station is now a wide-open boulevard. The tangled clutter of steel that had dominated the near view beyond it is gone, leaving a clear view of the Custom House Tower and the skyscrapers of the Financial District.
Of course it’s still messy, with construction laydown, debris piles, machinery parking in a large cleared area that once was under the Expressway. The vast expanse of pavement in front of North Station is chopped and scarred by the treads of construction machinery. The promised parks are still a good ways away.
Ah, the Big Dig. America’s homage to the graft that drives the Democratic party.
Override Reagan’s veto of this boondoggle, pay the unions tons of money, bail out a local government who had no foresight in the 60’s. UGH!
James Carrol is right-the Democratic party in MA is hopelessly corrupt. The funding for the “Big Dig” was approved by Congress, during the reign of House Speaker Tip O’Neli…this guy was so corrupt that he openly went on junkets with guys from PERINI CoNSTRUCTION, Modern Continental, and other Big Dig contractors. President Reagan tried to veto the bill, but was overridden by His Majesty King Tip.
What’s really going to be fun: in the coming years, as the unstable soil around the tunnel shifts, a lot of shyscraper foundations , sewr lines, etc., are going to be damaged. The Mass Turnpike (the political hack organization that runs the project) will likely have to pay out hundreds of millions in damage claims. This will mean that we’ll be paying tolls on the Mass Turpike well into the NEXT century!
Anotherbit of MA history: this disaster never needed to be built…a certain Governor(Frank Sargent) vetoed the extension of Rt.95 into Boston (the City had already taken the land for the right-of-way)…this happened in the late 1960’s. Extending Rt. 95 wouldhave taken allof the traffic load off the old expressway…but then. the democrats wouldn’t have gotten all that graft (which was the main object of the Big Dig).
The Central Artery and Southeast Expressway were already there, kid. The I-95 / Innerbelt project (much more extensive than you’re hinting) kept that damn ugly overhead freeway system from cutting across Roxbury, Allston/Brighton, Cambridge, Somerville, Revere, Lynn, and Peabody. It would not have alleviated the ugliness of the I-93 segment at all. It did, however, contribute to the still-present traffic nightmare on 128. Sargent was a Republican, yes, but don’t be misled - he was a social liberal and one of the staunchest environmentalists of his time.
As eddy points out, the tunnelling part of the project was intended as a beautification project for the downtown area of a historic city - a history that included being one of the first to tear down an entire neighborhood in the name of urban renewal. The tunnelling started during the construction of the original Artery in the Fifties, too - once the true monstrosity of the North Station / Haymarket section was visible, it was redesigned to send at least the Financial District / Chinatown section underground. Remember the Dewey Square Tunnel? That’s it. It’s part of the new project as well, or will be when the rerouting and retiling are done.
The Turnpike extension through the Ted Williams Tunnel to Logan was simultaneous but really a separate project with separate goals, involving (as it was said then) “Untying the knot at the heart of New England’s transportation system”. It is now possible to go from west or south of Boston right to the airport without passing through the Artery or the old tunnels, and if you lived west or south you’d know how important that is. It also provides an access road from the South Boston waterfront, a pretty important addition if you’re in the fresh seafood business.
O’Neill and virtually the entire New England congressional delegation made Fred Salvucci’s plan happen, certainly, but you dismiss the reasons too ignorantly.
<hijack>$14.6 Billion is also the amount that Saddam pocketed from the “Oil for Food” program thru smuggling. So I guess he’d say it is just pocket change. ;)</hijack>
I was up in Boston for three days a little over two years ago. It was during a 5000 mile trip across the country and I can say with all certainty, the roads in that city were the worst I had experienced EVER.
Here are some of the fun things I encountered:
A toll road leading into a tunnel where there was absolutely no warning I would be entering a toll road until it was too late to stop.
Right after the toll lane (with 8 booths), you had to condense traffic down to 2 lanes within 100 feet. I don’t think I’m exaggerating on the distance.
A muffler just sitting in the middle of the highway traffic had to weave around.
Construction everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
At some points, the highway just stopped. It was necessary to get off the highway and travel back through contruction infested streets to get onto the proper highway again.
Lack of signs and parking. I was to meet a fellow Doper at the Aquariums and, despite me being within a mile radius of the place, it took me a full hour (seriously, an hour) to figure out where this place was, what exit to take, and find parking.
Negotiating New York’s streets was a walk in the park compared to Boston. But gosh…the Big Dig’s white bridge sure does look purty.
On the plus side, I think by law they’re required to put a Dunkin Donuts in the all the Dig’s tunnels.
The American Feds are picking up 75 % of the big dig , but can you really see Ottawa doing the same ?
Sounds fine for pet causes , like making everyone take the TTC , by forcing people to leave their cars at home or designated subway stations and the like. But until you actually see concrete plans being made , remember this and other loony tunes ideas have been floating around ever since the spadina express way , and the lawrence freeway (can’t remember the name off hand) were canceled back in the early seventies.
With the Feds and Queens park kicking money into extending the 404 up to hwy 69 ? , the 427 somewhere , and the 407 being extended in both directions, the money is just not going to be there , the only thing , is that this may be a green dream, with the short term promise of making a lot of money , only to suggest that maybe the damm thing would be cheaper by burying the whole kit and kaboodle and killing the gardiner that way.
The next twenty years in Toronto are going to be a mess though, with traffic, no question there.
How long is it , another 3 years for mcsquinty ? too long by far.
Mass. Atty. General Tom Reilly has annouced that he will “get to the bottom of this mess”…now it turns out that he has accepted bribes (campaign “contributions”) from all of the contractors who built the “Big Dig”! And, embatteled project manager Matt Amarillo (AKA Fat Matt) defiantly announces that the project is safe, and he will stay on!
Sen. Ted Kennedy was interviewed as well…looking befuddled (perhaps he had a few bad ice cubes)…looking like a deer in the headlights, Sen. Kennedy said that it was up to the contractors to correct the problems.
Well, here we have a major project that is fast becoming a disaster…and NOBODY is responsible!
The Turpike Authority employs 25 lawyers, the state has 800+, and literally miles of contracts have been signed…yet nobody knows WHO is responsible.
Perhaps the counsel should have counsel.
Buck up taxpayers! You areabout top get shafted once again!
Well, let’s look at this from a local’s perspective:
A toll road leading into a tunnel where there was absolutely no warning I would be entering a toll road until it was too late to stop.
Hey, we have to raise revenue any way we can to pay for all this road work, you know?
Right after the toll lane (with 8 booths), you had to condense traffic down to 2 lanes within 100 feet. I don’t think I’m exaggerating on the distance.
You know that passage in the Bible about the quick and the dead? And those Southern Baptists think us Northerners are all godless heathens! Plus, for the Darwinists among us, it’s a stellar example of natural selection at work on the gene pool.
A muffler just sitting in the middle of the highway traffic had to weave around.
So, did YOU stop your car, leap out, and retrieve the offending item? I didn’t think so. Road crews demand combat pay for removing stuff like that, ya know.
Construction everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
Naw, it only seemed like that. There are always isolated pockets of peaceful inactivity, if you know where to look. Like out in the Berkshires.
At some points, the highway just stopped. It was necessary to get off the highway and travel back through contruction infested streets to get onto the proper highway again.
Well, hell – try building a new superhighway directly underneath the old one, running through the heart of a city whose downtown streets were mostly laid out in Colonial times, and see how you do. At least you didn’t have to leap your car across the gaps.
Lack of signs and parking. I was to meet a fellow Doper at the Aquariums and, despite me being within a mile radius of the place, it took me a full hour (seriously, an hour) to figure out where this place was, what exit to take, and find parking.
Street signs? Those are for wimps. If you don’t know how to get where you want to go, what are you doing here anyway?
Negotiating New York’s streets was a walk in the park compared to Boston. But gosh…the Big Dig’s white bridge sure does look purty.
Yeh, it looks even purtier now that most of the construction is done and you can get a good look at it. Skyline’s looking mighty fine, too, from a bunch of new perspectives. And the Red Sox beat the Yankees, nyah nyah nyah!
On the plus side, I think by law they’re required to put a Dunkin Donuts in the all the Dig’s tunnels.
No, only on every second street corner. It’s the McDonald’s that own the tunnel rights.
