housands walk through Boston's 'Big Dig'
BOSTON (Reuters) - Thousands of curious Bostonians turned out Sunday to walk through a new tunnel that is part of the city's $14.6 billion "Big Dig," the largest and most complex highway construction project in U.S. history.
After more than a decade of construction work, organizers opened a half-mile stretch of tunnel to give pedestrians a chance to see first-hand what the underground project is all about.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which manages the Big Dig, said as many as a half-million people were expected to walk through the subterranean highway by the end of the day.
By 2 p.m., the waiting time to get into the tunnel had grown to an hour as tens of thousands of people choked the main street leading to the entrance.
"I'm here because I figure we're spending billions of dollars on this project so I'd better get as much out of it as I can," said Sam Maranto, 36, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, as he waited in line for the free walk-through.
"Plus, I also want to see it with my own eyes, see that it's actually going to be completed," he added.
The project has been compared to the building of the Hoover Dam or the Panama Canal, but over the years it has become a source of endless frustration for just about anyone passing through Boston.
Designed to replace outdated elevated highways in downtown Boston with sleek tunnels, the Big Dig has produced a seemingly never-ending saga of traffic headaches, political scandals, engineering glitches and billions of dollars in cost overruns.
The tunnel that was opened to pedestrians on Sunday was due to open to vehicles later this year. As for the rest of the Big Dig, it should be dug by 2004, organizers said.
08/25/02 16:04 ET
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