Boston's Big Dig Shirks Prior Notions of State Spending on Transportation

For decades, the North End was hemmed in by the Central Artery. Outsiders were discouraged from entering by the dark and dirty spaces beneath what locals dubbed the Green Monster.

But with that Green Monster banished, the North End is a more welcoming place for the tourists, who come to see historic attractions, like the Paul Revere Mall.

NANCY CARUSO, North End community activist: The first thing we saw when they took it down was how bright Cross Street was. We actually had to go back inside and get our sunglasses.

RAY SUAREZ: For Nancy Caruso, who stood up for the neighborhood before, during, and after construction, the project has been a mixed blessing.

NANCY CARUSO: We are getting a tremendous influx of visitors, tourists, busloads. We are now jammed with humanity. Well, the neighborhood's changed to the point where we can't afford it. We can't afford to live here, not unless you own your building.

RAY SUAREZ: Boston's waterfront, which had also been trapped on the wrong side of the dreaded Central Artery, has also witnessed a renaissance.

The city also picked up a striking new landmark, in the form of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge over the Charles River, completed in 2002.

Remarkable engineering feats aside, the Big Dig will also be remembered for some of the problems that plagued the technically challenging project. They include widespread leaks and the death of an automobile passenger in a tunnel ceiling collapse in 2006. A lack of effective oversight is also on the long list of criticisms.

Some nearby municipalities are still waiting for Massachusetts to deliver on mass transit commitments designed to mitigate the environmental impact of the Big Dig.

Nearly 20 years after committing to the northward expansion of the Green Line light rail, as part of a legal settlement over air quality, the state is moving ahead with those plans. That's considered long overdue in the densely populated city of Somerville, bordering Boston.

The region did what a lot of America did right after the war: It punched an expressway through Somerville and tore out its streetcar lines. That left this close-in suburb oddly isolated from the big city and yearning for a rail line.

ELLIN REISNER, president, Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership: Because people will get out of cars, we'll have less traffic, and it will reduce some of the local pollution that we have in the neighborhoods. The other thing that this will do is this will give us an opportunity to do some really important economic development.

RAY SUAREZ: Yet, for all it did and has yet to do for people in the Boston region, the Big Dig's lasting legacy may prove to be on the funding and management front.

Richard Dimino heads a nonprofit organization that worked with the business community in Boston to build support for the project.

It didn't need to happen. That was a bad thing, so transparency is one of the lessons learned.

RAY SUAREZ: Originally estimated to cost less than $3 billion, the numbers have continued to rise. In July this year, the Boston Globe reported that, with interest, the debt had spiraled to $22 billion and wouldn't be paid until 2038.

Fred Salvucci is now a senior lecturer at MIT. He expresses frustration with the way the cost issue is often presented.

FREDERICK SALVUCCI: There's a myth out there that the rest of the country paid for these cost increases. The cost increases were unwarranted; the inflation was outrageous, caused by unwarranted delays.

The additional highway elements -- billions of dollars -- I think were unwise. But the money's spent, and now the bill has to be paid, and that bill is being paid by the people of Massachusetts, not by everyone else in America.

RAY SUAREZ: Salvucci says the Big Dig should be seen as a symbol of success, not wild spending. But in an era of shrinking tax revenues and conflicting spending priorities, the question is: Can taxpayers anywhere afford the bill?