INT: Talk about how the Big Dig was actually two projects and how they came together.
FS: Well, really the Big Dig, as it's called, is really composed of two major elements that
started out as different projects. One element is the depression of are elevated Central
Artery, I-93, and that's the idea that -- that Bill Reynolds came to me with and we jointly
went to Altshuler about. It will, basically, when it's done, eliminate this highway that
divides the city from its own waterfront and at the same time substantially increase the
capacity of the highway, 'cause once it's underground, you can widen it somewhat and, in
particular, at its key bottlenecks, you can effectively double the capacity of the roadway.
So that's the depressed artery part of it.
The tunnel part of it, so called, is the extension of Interstate 90 across Boston Harbor to
Logan Airport. Interstate 90 comes all the way from Seattle east to Boston and now ends
at I-93 in back of South Station. The idea of the tunnel as it's now being built is to
continue under the Fort Point Channel past South Station under what used to be basically
a railroad yard complex in South Boston and then across, under Boston Harbor, coming
up at Logan Airport with a little connector beyond it to tie into Route 1.
The tunnel had a different history. It had initially been proposed in the '60s and at that
time it was proposed to be in the Fort Point Channel, essentially going through the
location of the Boston Tea Party and going through the East Boston community on the
other side of the harbor in order to access Logan Airport. So there was major
controversy. The reason that this Boston community was part of the anti-highway
coalition was because that element of the highway was going to basically cut East Boston
in half and be very disruptive. And the historic impact on the Boston end, disrupting the site
of the Boston Tea Party, had not yet attracted attention, but anybody who
understood federal law would have to realize that that was not gonna happen. In addition
to that, the original location of the tunnel in the Fort Point Channel would have disrupted
the cooling water supply for the Gillette Company, which is the largest manufacturer in
Boston. So the original tunnel idea had many problems with it.
What is getting built is substantially different in that it is located about a half a mile to the
east, all underground, and in areas that were formerly basically railroad areas. So it's
basically going to enhance the developability of that land. It'll be environmentally
compatible because it's below ground, and it, which had been a very controversial item in
this relocated location, has been very strong and very popular ever since. The ironic thing
is that this location idea also came from Bill Reynolds, the same fella who had the idea
about depressing the artery. I mean he's a very creative fellow and really the two central
elements of the Big Dig--putting I-93 underground and the relocation of I-90 under and to
the east of its original conceived location--are both Bill Reynolds' ideas and in both cases
it made all the difference between something that was horrible and eventually something
that's going to be extremely nice for the city as well as a good transportation boost.
