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  More from National Journal. Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. |
 Political Pulse:The Big Dig and the Shovel Brigade April 26, 2000 Boston's Central Artery Project is the most expensive public works project in American history. It's well on its way to becoming the most expensive in the world. It also confirms everything Americans suspect about both technology and politics. The project is a technological triumph and a political disaster. During the 1950s, in the frenzy of highway construction that consumed the country, the commonwealth of Massachusetts built an elevated highway that cut the city off from its historic harbor and destroyed surrounding neighborhoods. It was widely denounced as an eyesore and soon turned into an above-ground traffic jam. In the 1970s, Gov. Michael Dukakis' administration came up with a solution: move the highway underground and cover it with parkland, bike paths, trains, and electric buses. The plan was a model of ecological correctness. It was big, it was daring, and technologically, it was cutting edge. That's because the idea was to relocate the highway without disrupting the life of the city. "I think it ranks as one of the eight wonders of the world," project engineer Robert Carv told History Channel filmmakers producing a documentary on the project. "It's such a serious engineering undertaking to keep the city fully functional while you drive a tunnel underneath the city wall." It was also very expensive. Twenty-five times as expensive as the construction costs for the Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam put together. Where was the money going to come from? Seventy percent of it, from the federal government. But in 1987, President Reagan vetoed the bill funding the project, calling it "a textbook example of special-interest, pork-barrel politics at work." Massachusetts had influential lawmakers in Congress, however. Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill had worked hard for the bill in the House. Sen. Edward Kennedy did likewise in the Senate when it voted on overriding Reagan's veto. "It was a scary day," former Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Fred Salvucci recalls, "and we won by one vote." So the "Big Dig" began. And the cost estimates started to rise. "When it was enacted, it was $2.6 billion," House Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., points out. "Then it went to $10.4 billion. Now we have it at $12 billion. Some people have it at $13 billion. Some have it higher." Higher? That could make it the most expensive public works project in history, edging up against the $15 billion English Channel tunnel, which opened in 1994. The channel tunnel is 31 miles long. The Central Artery is 8 miles long. Truly, a wonder of the world. In February of this year, the project managers acknowledged nearly $2 billion in cost overruns. A federal task force rushed in to examine the books. Last week, they came out with a report accusing the project managers of intentionally concealing the project's true cost and causing "one of the most flagrant breaches of the integrity of the federal-state partnership in the history of the nearly 85-year-old federal-aid highway program." "The word that kind of leaps out from this rather comprehensive report is the word 'intentional,' " Gov. Argeo Paul Cellucci commented, "the intentional withholding of information from the federal highway department." The Massachusetts public had already reached that conclusion. Back in February, when the cost overruns were first revealed, a Boston Globe poll found that, by 2-to-1, Massachusetts residents felt project managers had been intentionally misleading about the cost. Last week, Gov. Cellucci fired the project manager, who offered his own explanation: "To the extent that people think we've misled them, I can understand that, because all of a sudden anyone who has ever remodeled a kitchen says, 'Well, it's going to cost more.' " After all, you've got to figure in unions, consultants, insurers, out-of-town conferences -- you know what happens when you remodel the kitchen. Who's going to foot the bill? The taxpayers, of course. In the short run, heads will roll -- including, possibly, the governor's in two years. In the February Globe poll, 28 percent of Massachusetts residents gave Cellucci a positive job rating. Just 10 percent approved of his management of the highway project. And that was before the federal task force issued its report. But you can't stop progress. U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said last week, "A lot of times you talk about how it is the art of the journey that is more enjoyable than crossing the finish line. That can only be said after you cross the finish line." Slater's conclusion: "We have got to complete this project." What happens in the long run? That's what historians are trained to think about. The History Channel asked William Fowler, the director of the Massachusetts Historical Society, who said, "I am tired of people talking about what it costs, because you know what? Thirty years from now, no one will remember [the cost], but they will remember the result." The Big Dig is a triumph of the new technology and the old politics -- the politics of Tip O'Neill ("All politics is local") and Ted Kennedy (tax, tax, spend, spend, elect, elect). The Big Dig stands as a marvel of technological competence -- and political incompetence. What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Schneider is the Cable News Network's senior political analyst. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times, National Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. His column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. All material copyright © 2000 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | ||||||||||||
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