Boston is known for its history
Centuries of historic events from The Tea Party , to the ride of Paul Revere, the molasses disaster in the North End to the many great moments in sports history . Our dynasties the Celtics , Redsox . Patriots, and Bruins. One moment we sometimes forget. The largest public works project in the US. The Big Dig.
Originally slated for completion in 1988 the dig started in 1991 estimated @ 2.8 billion and ended in 2007 . Its final cost was estimated at 24.3 billion making it the most expensive highway project in US History. After federal criminal investigation , 700 leaks and one death and subsequent law suit of 407 million dollars . The dig reduced traffic times by 62% from 38,200 hrs of travel to in 94-95 to 14,800 hrs in 2004-2005.
My memories were navigating through the ever changing landscape of Boston Constantly morphing from one ways to two ways and two ways to one ways. As a veteran of Boston’s downtown area i found that my knowledge was of no use to me . I recall driving on surface road one night totally confused to what side of the street i was on . As i meandered along and saw a police vehicle slowly creeping towards me . He stopped my vehicle and approached me. I immediately went into Lawyer mode trying to mount my best defense.
He threw his hands up and says to me in his perfect Boston accent. ” Im not gonna give you a ticket i dont even know where im going . just get offa this thing ok” I happily complied. Other adventures included the hide and seek positioning and repositioning of the entrance to the airport tunnel. That changed practically from day to day . After Ten years and the feeling that i was living in a wore torn country .. I endured . Now i walk along the Rose Kennedy park and go over the Leonard P Zakim bridge . Going northbound on 93 is better and getting in and out the airport via the Ted Williams tunnel has improved. ” If it dosen’t kill us it makes us stronger”. With pride i can say ” I Survived the Big Dig”.
