If you’re not from the Boston area, then you may or may not have heard about the Big Dig disaster. The Big Dig, as we call it, is a federally funded program to give money to campaign donors and employ politicians’ friends and relatives and former colleagues. Actually, it was supposed to be a project to build a major new highway through the center of Boston connecting north, south, and the airport across the harbor. But, see, that project—first proposed back in 1985—was only supposed to take about a decade and cost $2.5 billion dollars. The real project—we could call it the Big “Pig”—took 20 years and the current cost is $14.6 billion and rising.
Of course, if the thing were actually well built and ready for use, we might consider it water under the bridge and a lesson learned. But that’s not the case. In September 2004, the Interstate 93 tunnel through Boston developed a major leak, and it was disclosed that the tunnels were known to have been leaking as far back as 2001. In August 2005, the state police raided the offices of one of the contractors in an investigation into whether substandard concrete had been used in the project and the records faked to hide it. But the worst of it came on this past July 10, when a four three-ton concrete ceiling panels in the I-90/Massachusetts Turnpike connector to the Ted Williams Tunnel under South Boston collapsed onto the roadway, crushing a car and killing a woman, Milena De Valle, a grandmother and immigrant from Costa Rica. The I-90 and Ted Williams tunnel connecting Boston to East Boston and Logan Airport has been shut down causing traffic chaos throughout the Boston area and investigators are now finding massive flaws throughout the system.
Why you should care even if you’re not in Massachusetts
Technorati Tags:Big Dig, Boston, corruption, Massachusetts, politics
bk_keywords:The Big Dig.
What does this have to do with those of you not in the Boston area? For one thing, this was your tax dollars spent on this corrupt and wasteful project and probably more of them will be spent fixing it. For another thing, Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, is likely to be a candidate for president in 2008. All Americans should look at this situation and ask themselves what Romney’s role was in how the problems were dealt with and how is he dealing with fixing the situation? These could be good indicators of how he would deal with similar situations as president.
I’ll bite.
Mitt Romney’s role in this has been to cut the !@#!@ that’s been going on for two decades…and cut the travel access via this travesty. This makes him presidential material in my book.
Wikipedia, as I’ve said before, is a joke. If you don’t like what’s there, just edit it, and bingo, it’ll show up as The Truth.
There is NO reference to Tip O’Neill, the grandfather of the whole pork laden project.
M. Michael Dukakis is mentioned once. Did I see Ted “splash” Kennedy’s name in the article? He took up the fundraising project after Tip met his Maker.
I have been paying for this comedy for around twenty years. Any American taxpayer who’s been working as long as I have can say the same.
The result? A young mother of three died. (Not a “grandmother, by the way.)
And so what used to be a sometimes difficult drive through Boston at any time has become a nightmare.
Not so different, actually, from when I lived on the North Shore…20 years ago. We could’ve saved a bundle. And a lady might still be alive.
No Kelly, she is a grandmother. She had a 23-year-old daughter with a child.
Well Kelly, feel free to edit the Wikipedia entry as you see fit.
The thing is, I could do that. Anybody could. That’s my point about Wikipedia in general.
I would no doubt slant it, consciously or unconsciously, toward my point of view. Then too, I would’ve made at least one error (probably more)…in this case, one of omission regarding Mrs. De Valle’s grandchild.
If Kelly were to follow the rules in WP, she’d only enter information that can be verified from a published source: thus she would not make the error about Mrs. DelValle’s family status.
There are errors of omission, too, which is sorta the point.
Not to mention novel uses for duct tape.