Essay on Big Dig

Big Dig was one of the largest infrastructure projects in the US history. The project known as the Central Artery/Tunnel Project was developed and started in the 1970s to construct a brand new highway underground Boston. However, the implementation of the project has revealed the full extent, to which the management of the project was incompetent. Moreover, today, the completed project is a reminder of the wide gap between initial plans and expectations and the disappointment and completion of the project in 2005, which was accompanied by severe criticism from the part of mass media and public.

In fact, Big Dig was the largest and most ambitious infrastructure project in the USA. The main goal of the project was to construct the underground infrastructure and transportation system to move the highway underground Boston. In such a way, the local authorities attempted to free the city from the traffic and decrease the air pollution in Boston. In such a context, the contraction of Big Dig was justified because the project was expected to bring considerable economic and, what was more important, environmental benefits to the city and the state.

The construction has lasted since 1970s and has never been fully completed according to the original project, although the project was formally completed in 2005 (Ross, 4). The project lasted for about thirty years was not only one of the largest but also one of the longest projects in the US history. At the same time, the long time of construction and the failure to complete the project fast along with permanent high spending on the project raised severe criticism of the project.

No wonder, the results of the projects were controversial. On the one hand, the project was partially completed and improved the traffic and, especially transit in the city. In fact, a considerable part of the traffic moved underground but the project was completed only partially and the Big Dig could not perform its functions at 100% as it was initially supposed to do (Murphy, 5). Nevertheless, the project improved environmental situation but not very significantly and the public is disenchanted in environmental and economic outcomes of the project. As a part of the traffic moved underground, the environmental situation in Boston has improved a little bit.

On the other hand, the project was too costly. The last three years of construction were accompanied by $100 million monthly investments, whereas the overall costs of the project comprised about $15 billion (Gelinas, 2). At the same time, the construction was imperfect, including materials used in the course of construction and engineering planning and solutions implemented in the project. In fact, some concrete materials used in the construction of the tunnel did not match the quality of materials defined by the contract (Murphy & Allen, 6). The poor quality of the construction was fully revealed, when the concrete panel dropped in a Big Dig tunnel in 2006 and caused the death of a 38-year-old woman. In addition, a number of corruption-related issues emerged.

In such a context, Big Dig has proved to be a highly controversial project. On the one hand, this was the largest and most daring infrastructure project in the US history. On the other hand, this project was too costly, whereas the quality of the construction is low. Hence, the public is disappointed with the project.