Thursday, 4:30 PM
Eastbound Ted Williams Tunnel open to buses
By Matt Viser and Scott Allen, Globe Staff
The eastbound Ted Williams Tunnel reopened to bus traffic this morning less than 24 hours after Governor Mitt Romney closed the main route to Logan International Airport because he said emergency repairs were necessary to fix two bolts holding up a ceiling panel.
One eastbound lane opened at 6:50 a.m., allowing Silver Line and Logan Express to access the airport, Romney said at a late morning press conference.
The tunnel's eastbound lanes have been closed to motorists since 10 ceiling panels fell in the connector on July 10, killing Milena Del Valle, 38, of Jamaica Plain. But until Thursday emergency vehicles and Silver Line and Logan Express buses heading east to the airport were allowed to use the tunnel.
It took crews 19 hours to build a temporary scaffolding system to support the problem ceiling tile, Romney said. The metal structure is a stopgap that allows one lane of traffic to pass while engineers determine the best way to permanently secure the concrete panel.
“I won’t feel 100 percent secure in the Ted Williams Tunnel until we have done the calculations or the pull tests,” said Romney. The governor said officials will then be able to determine if the problems there are anomalies or signs of a systematic failure.
Each bus or emergency vehicle that passes through the tunnel must be escorted by a state police car, Romney said.
Officials are also placing electronic devices on Interstate 93 to monitor a 100-foot stretch of the Tip O’Neill Tunnel near South Station, where crews used a similar epoxy method to secure the ceiling tiles. At this point, there has not been an evidence of slippage, Romney said.
Last week, in the aftermath of the ceiling collapse in the adjacent Interstate 90 connector, Romney and Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Chairman Matthew J. Amorello had separately assured the public that the Ted Williams Tunnel appeared to be safe, though its drop ceiling used epoxy-and-bolt fasteners similar to those suspected of failing in the connector.
Inspectors from the Turnpike Authority had spotted the loose bolts last week, but agency officials concluded they were not an immediate concern, in part because the ceiling panels were lighter than in the connector.
But after state highway department inspectors conducted another visual inspection Tuesday and Wednesday, Romney reached a different conclusion, saying in a news conference Thursday afternoon that two loose bolts on a single panel posed ``a very substantial threat to public safety." One bolt had slipped out of the roof by an inch, the other by half an inch.
``It is perhaps an overreaction, but we want to err on the side of public safety," Romney said.
The westbound Ted Williams Tunnel has remained open to motorists, although the ramp between I-90 and I-93 at Exit 24 was closed Saturday after inspectors discovered loose bolt fixtures.
Motorists wanting to stay on the turnpike are diverted at Exit 25 into South Boston, where detours eventually lead back to the turnpike.
Romney also disclosed Thursday that a review of drawings indicated that some of the Ted Williams Tunnel ceiling panels are more than twice as heavy as turnpike officials had previously said -- up to 1,800 pounds -- a claim that the Turnpike Authority disputed.
And if tests reveal more problem bolts, he said, widespread repairs could be necessary, which would disrupt traffic for weeks, if not months.
``At this stage, the Ted Williams Tunnel system does not look like a systemic failure," he said. ``That could change" after the tests, in which a sample of bolts are pulled on to see whether they can support the weight they are designed for.
Romney has been engaged in a bitter political battle with Amorello. The governor last week persuaded state lawmakers to pass emergency legislation giving him control of the Big Dig, and ordered hearings to remove Amorello from his post.
Massachusetts highway officials accompanied turnpike officials on their initial inspection of the Ted Williams Tunnel ceiling on July 11, but Carlisle stressed in an interview Thursday that the state inspectors played a secondary role to the turnpike officials.
He said the legislation passed last Friday gave state officials control over the safety investigation for the first time, allowing their first comprehensive inspection this week.
``We had not controlled a comprehensive inspection that looked at all of these areas, nor did we have the information about the load bearing capacity" of the ceiling support rods, Carlisle said.
Turnpike Authority spokeswoman Mariellen Burns issued a brief statement Thursday saying Turnpike and Big Dig inspectors had identified several places in the Ted Williams Tunnel ``that were areas of concern that needed to be addressed and reported them as such. . . . We support that any action taken is being done so with public safety in mind." Burns added that the tunnel, which opened in 1995, had been inspected most recently in 2003.
She disputed Romney's and state officials' contention that some of the tunnel's ceiling panels were almost 2,000 pounds, saying the largest panels are 4-by-12 feet and weigh 912 pounds. Last week, Michael P. Lewis, Big Dig project director for the Turnpike Authority, said the panels weighed about 800 pounds.
Carlisle said, however, that based on information provided by the Big Dig, state engineers estimated that most of the tunnel's panels weigh about 1,800 pounds.
And during a June 12, 1995, tour of the Ted Williams Tunnel while it was under construction, Phil Montoni, lead senior field inspector on the tunnel's finish work, said in a taped interview with the Globe that the ceiling panels ``roughly go 2,000 pounds apiece."
Carlisle stressed that even at the heavier weight, the panels are lighter than the 4,500-to-6,000-pound concrete ceiling panels in the I-90 connector.
The sudden closure of the eastbound lanes at noon Thursday confused and frustrated passengers going to the airport. The Silver Line buses were rerouted to the Aquarium Station on the Blue Line. Passengers had to get off the bus, switch to the T, and then get on a shuttle to the airport.
The Silver Line had been one of the bright spots in what has otherwise turned into a transportation nightmare -- on Wednesday there was a record number of riders, nearly 5,000, who took the Silver Line to the airport -- but MBTA officials Thursday began warning riders to expect delays.
``I'm feeling frustrated and lost," said Don Pearsall , who took the Silver Line to pick up his two children from the airport. ``This is a major pain. I know there's a criminal investigation, but there should be lynchings."
The evolving changes have also been putting a strain on Boston transportation officials, who are facing a tab of about $60,000 a day to pay police overtime and for signs to reroute traffic.
``We would love to get a more concrete timeline on remediation and repair and get things open. But we will deal with things as they come our way," said the city's acting transportation commissioner, Thomas J. Tinlin.
Boston emergency officials sent five firefighters and an additional firetruck to join two extra ambulances in East Boston, an area that has been chocked off from the rest of the city.
For now, Carlisle said the state is sticking to its schedule to re-open the ramp connecting South Boston to the eastbound turnpike (ramp A) by ``early next week," with the ramp connecting the westbound turnpike to I-93 opening a week after that. However, he said the new problems in the tunnel could slow the reopening. ``Our bottom line is making sure these tunnels are safe," he said.
The Turnpike Authority issued a traffic advisory Thursday saying that two lanes of I-93 North from the O'Neill Tunnel entrance to the Atlantic Avenue onramp will be closed at night from 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m., beginning last night, until further notice.
The agency did not say whether the closings were related to the safety concerns.
Andrea Estes, Rick Klein, Thomas C. Palmer, and Jonathan Saltzman of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed to this report. Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com, and Scott Allen at allen@globe.com.
