Boston's Big Dig | 60 Minutes Archive

- Boston’s Big Dig became the most expensive road project ever built. The 7.5-mile highway project in downtown Boston was estimated to cost $10 billion, equivalent to more than $1 billion per mile. The report argues that approximately one-third of the expenditure had little or nothing to do with actually building the road.

- American federal taxpayers were financing 85% of the project. The enormous federal contribution made the Big Dig a national financial concern rather than simply a Massachusetts infrastructure project.

- The original purpose was to replace Boston’s congested Central Artery. The existing elevated highway was notorious for perpetual traffic jams and was considered an eyesore. The plan was to remove it, construct a wider underground highway and build a new tunnel connecting downtown Boston with the airport.

- Critics questioned whether the project would actually solve Boston’s traffic problems. They argued that the Big Dig had increasingly become a beautification and urban redevelopment project rather than a straightforward transportation improvement.

- Massachusetts Inspector General Robert Saracole warned that the project had become too large to control. He predicted that people could eventually find themselves sitting in traffic inside the new tunnels, breathing fumes and wondering what the enormous expenditure had accomplished. He argued that the project had effectively become self-perpetuating.

- The Big Dig had powerful political sponsors in Congress. Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy had pushed the project approximately a decade earlier. Senators recalled that it was widely regarded as Tip O’Neill’s project, making support for it politically attractive.

- The original $2.5 billion estimate doubled under Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis. After Republican William Weld took office in 1991, the projected cost doubled again. The project consequently became a bipartisan undertaking, with politicians from both parties sharing responsibility for its escalating price.

- Boston Magazine journalist Jon Stranix described a culture of widespread political and institutional participation. Stranix, executive editor and co-author of critical articles about the Big Dig, said virtually everybody had endorsed the project or secured some benefit from it. He described a local grab-bag mentality and a Santa Claus mentality within the project itself.

- Stranix argued that many cost increases came from satisfying businesses and community groups rather than conventional construction problems. He distinguished these expenditures from corruption, inflation and technical difficulties, suggesting that money was distributed to prevent influential local interests from opposing the project.

- The availability of federal funding attracted demands from major Boston institutions. Once organizations realized that the project had access to substantial federal money, they approached the project seeking compensation, facilities or other benefits.

- The Boston Garden received $15 million for replacement storage arrangements. The project displaced storage space used by the Boston Celtics for their parquet basketball floor and other equipment. Independent appraisers reportedly estimated that replacing the storage space would have cost only $3 million.

- Boston's Science Museum received $500,000 for an exhibition about the Big Dig. The expenditure was presented as another example of project money being used for purposes extending beyond highway construction.

- The project contributed $750,000 toward a Holocaust victims' memorial. When questioned about its connection to the highway, Massachusetts Big Dig director Peter Zuk explained that construction would disrupt the surrounding area for years. He said the memorial provided an opportunity to demonstrate that the project would deliver public amenities alongside the inconvenience of construction.

- Public parks became another major component of the project's community benefits. One example was a former rubbish dump on an island that was being converted into a picnic park for $130 million. The project was transporting excavated Big Dig soil to the island for the development.

- Harvard Professor Alan Altshuler explained why public infrastructure projects incur substantial community-related expenditure. He argued that federal funding arrangements create powerful incentives to satisfy people and institutions that might otherwise sue to stop construction. Achieving local consensus becomes so important that project officials spend considerable sums maintaining public and institutional support.

- Maintaining uninterrupted federal funding became a central project priority. Altshuler agreed that preventing interruptions to federal money was one of the most important considerations. This created an incentive to accommodate local interests rather than risk opposition that could delay construction or threaten funding.

- Harvard itself received federal money through a study of the Big Dig. Altshuler and his colleagues produced a history of the project costing approximately $267,000. When asked who financed it, Altshuler explained that the study was predominantly funded by the state using federal money.

- Boston police officers received $66 million in overtime payments. Police officers were working as flagmen at construction sites, with the project covering their additional working hours.

- The Boston Fire Department requested its own project benefit: a fireboat. Officials described the department's demand as essentially asking where its share of the available money was. The state agreed to a contract for purchasing a boat, with the Big Dig paying approximately $231,000.

- The fireboat became an example of expensive procurement mistakes being transferred to taxpayers. The state Inspector General estimated that the purchase cost approximately $100,000 too much, partly because the contractor received a $70,000 commission and the boat was incorrectly designed.

- The fireboat's design created serious operational and safety problems. Firefighters wearing their equipment could not properly enter the cabins. Its fuel tanks were exposed externally, creating a potential explosion hazard when operating near fires. The vessel had to be redesigned and could not safely approach fires as originally intended.

- A project official acknowledged that taxpayers were paying for mistakes. When asked whether state and federal taxpayers had to absorb the costs of procurement errors, the official agreed that they did. The fireboat illustrated how poor purchasing decisions could generate additional public expenditure.

- Business interests influenced major engineering decisions. One example involved a proposed crossing near the Gillette manufacturing plant. Engineers estimated that constructing a bridge instead of the planned tunnel could have saved approximately $500 million.

- Concern about Gillette losing part of its parking lot helped justify the more expensive tunnel. Project officials were worried that building the bridge would take away some of the company's parking facilities and provoke opposition. The report presented the tunnel as an example of business accommodation potentially overriding substantial construction savings.

- Community objections caused the redesign of a major Charles River bridge system. The original arrangement, known as Scheme Z, included four ramps intended to carry traffic across the Charles River into downtown Boston. One of the ramps shown in the report was among four costing approximately $18 million to build.

- Scheme Z had been selected from 31 design possibilities. After considering 30 alternatives, officials selected the design that became Scheme Z. Local residents subsequently objected that they had not been adequately consulted and disliked its appearance, comparing the elevated structure to a giant vertical Slinky.

- Environmentalists, neighborhood groups and businesses also opposed Scheme Z. The combined opposition resulted in the original design being abandoned. One partially completed structure was left standing and described in the report as a ramp to nowhere.

- Replacing Scheme Z created another three years of design work. Officials developed a replacement known as Son of Scheme Z. Residents disliked that design too, but by then the process had advanced too far for another major change. The replacement was associated with an additional cost of approximately $1 billion, while the report's later expenditure breakdown listed $1.3 billion for the Scheme Z redesign.

- The report identified more than $3 billion in expenses associated with keeping businesses and communities satisfied. Its itemized list included:

• Scheme Z redesign: $1.3 billion.
• Boston Garden storage compensation: $15 million.
• Science Museum exhibition: $500,000.
• Holocaust memorial: $750,000.
• Picnic Island park: $130 million.
• Harvard study: $267,000.
• Police overtime: $66 million.
• Fireboat: $231,000.
• Gillette Channel tunnel cost addition: $500 million.
• New ferry terminal: $3 million.
• Fish protection system: $1 million.

- The report's stated total does not reconcile with its itemized figures. Adding the listed amounts produces approximately $2.017 billion, not more than $3 billion. The report says the list continues beyond the examples provided, but it does not identify the additional approximately $1 billion needed to reconcile the stated total.

- Peter Zuk rejected the suggestion that project officials were excessively sensitive to local objections. He argued that the expenditures addressed genuine needs and added value to the project. He maintained that modern urban infrastructure construction must account for the interests of neighborhoods and businesses rather than simply impose an engineering solution.

- Zuk defended the decision to keep the existing highway operational during construction. He compared the Big Dig to performing bypass surgery on a patient who insists on continuing to work and play tennis. His point was that the project was constructing a replacement highway underneath an existing road while keeping the existing transportation system functioning.

- The effort to maintain traffic and accommodate surrounding interests contributed to construction complexity. Rather than shutting down the existing highway and rebuilding the area directly, officials attempted to maintain normal city activity while undertaking a massive underground construction project.

- The Big Dig was already six years behind its original schedule. The report attributed the delays partly to accommodating local interests and partly to the construction management arrangement involving Bechtel and its partner.

- Bechtel and its partner had earned nearly $1 billion managing the project. The state had hired the construction giant and its partner to manage the Big Dig. Until recently, their contracts contained no penalties for delays or cost overruns, leaving them with relatively few contractual incentives to complete the work on time and within budget.

- The construction management representative resisted describing the project's financial performance as exceptional cost overruns. During questioning, the representative distinguished between general cost growth and an actual overrun, arguing that an overrun occurred when a particular activity exceeded its allocated cost.

- The representative accepted responsibility for what happened but defended the overall management process. When pressed about mistakes, the representative acknowledged that mistakes had occurred while maintaining that the design and construction process had been managed reasonably well given the project's extraordinary complexity and urban location.

- A sewer relocation contract demonstrated how individual construction costs escalated. A contractor was originally hired to move a sewer pipe for $20 million. The project subsequently increased to $39 million because of approximately 100 changes, overtime and repeated alterations to the work.

- The state negotiated the sewer relocation bill down from $39 million to $34 million. Officials presented the $5 million reduction as taxpayer savings. The report questioned whether this represented meaningful financial control when the original $20 million estimate had already increased by $14 million.

- The project's enormous community expenditures helped explain the limited public complaints about construction disruption. The reporter said the team had initially been surprised by how little Boston residents complained about noise, inconvenience and disruption. After investigating the financial arrangements and community benefits, the reporter suggested that the reason had become clearer.

- Massachusetts officials feared Congress might reduce federal funding. With approximately 85% of the project financed federally, any reduction would leave Massachusetts residents and taxpayers facing a substantially larger financial burden.

- A reduction in federal funding threatened the project's entire accommodation strategy. If Massachusetts had to finance a greater share itself, maintaining the extensive community benefits and institutional concessions would become considerably more difficult.