All Politics is Local

October 4, 2023·54 min·4 clips

A freshman senator's attempt to avoid the override vote by voting 'present' was ruled invalid by the Senate parliamentarian — and Ted Kennedy may have secured his reversal by threatening to become interested in the health effects of cigarettes.

A name hangs over the tunnel. The host starts with that bit of civic signage, then moves into the federal dealmaking behind the Big Dig. The route was the trick: link the Harbor Tunnel, the artery, Boston Airport, and I-90, and the project could fit into the unfinished interstate system. But the math had to hold. Federal highway officials would approve the combined plan only if the state could show the artery was as cost-effective as the Harbor Tunnel. So Matt Coogan and two federal officials spent about three months rebuilding the analysis from scratch. Old forecasts went out. Every calculation had to be signed off. Traffic predictions, tunnel capacity, average speeds, and projected benefits became the language Boston had to use. At the same time, Coogan was grieving his father, moving between Vermont family obligations and a project that could not wait. A bad result could have meant years of stalemate, and not just for Boston. The episode keeps coming back to what the numbers missed. For Salvucci and Coogan, depressing the artery was about repairing a city split by an elevated road. Exhaust, city damage, and the daily walk beneath almost 200,000 cars did not fit neatly into the equation. The project had to be sold through math, even when the reason for doing it was right there on the street.

As heard by us

A patient Boston infrastructure story that turns highway engineering into a fight over what progress should mean.

The Big Dig follows Boston's tunnel project with patience and a bit of grit, moving from the entrance carrying Tip O'Neill's name to the long push by Fred Salvucci and Michael Dukakis to bury the elevated artery and finish the airport connection.

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Want a Boston story about the Big Dig, Tip O'Neill's name over a tunnel entrance, and a fight that turned on numbers?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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