Reconstructing a tragedy

THE DEATH of Milena Del Valle is the most horrible of the wake-up calls showing that something has gone wrong with the Big Dig. The most urgent tasks, now the focus of public officials, include safely reopening the tunnels, and ensuring top-notch inspection and maintenance.

But there's an additional question: How could this have happened? There are tunnels all over the United States, some more than 100 years old, that do not fail. Is there something about the process by which this tunnel was designed and built that went awry and needs correction so this won't happen again?

Usually, complex projects in the public sector are developed using a ``belt and suspenders" model, a process with checks and balances. The public sector does not have standby, in-house expertise for giant projects, so it hires specialized private firms. The public agency also undertakes a parallel effort to build up its expertise to oversee private-sector resources. For example, in the late 1960s, when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority built the Orange Line tunnel under the Charles River, it used outside consultants, but it simultaneously built up its in-house expertise. The MBTA went on to oversee the Red Line tunnel extension to Alewife, and the Orange Line tunnel in the South End and Roxbury. By the 1980s, the MBTA had the best oversight capacity for public-sector construction in the region, and had procedures that recognized other principles: what gets built eventually must get operated, inspected, and maintained, and only the owner can be expected to really prioritize those ongoing aspects of the job.

For the Big Dig, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff was chosen to provide the private-sector ``suspenders." The engineering management firm was to develop the basic design, oversee other companies completing the final design, oversee the selection of contractors, and manage and inspect the construction to be sure bid documents were followed and specifications met. As the owner's representative, Bechtel would be fully accountable for proper engineering and construction. The Massachusetts Department of Public Works was, by statute, responsible for managing Bechtel and the process. In the 1980s, however, the department had seen its personnel ranks depleted. Budget cuts in the aftermath of Proposition 2 1/2 had eliminated almost half of its engineers. For the DPW to attempt to carry the owner's responsibility on the Big Dig would have guaranteed mission failure.

A 1990 study by the investment firm Lazard-Freres considered ownership, operation, and maintenance issues in light of the weakened DPW. Lazard-Freres recommended that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, the Port Authority, or a combination of the two be designated the owner-operator on the Big Dig. It also recommended that construction funding come from federal and state gasoline tax sources, so toll revenues would be reserved from Day 1 for maintenance.

But when Governor William F. Weld took over responsibility for the project in 1991, a radical privatization philosophy was introduced. It placed near total faith in Bechtel, to avoid the ``waste and inefficiency" of ``overlapping bureaucracy." Public employees were called ``walruses," leading some of the best public-sector specialists to leave for private firms. No decision was made on the owner role until nearly seven years later when the Turnpike Authority was designated. The financing responsibility for construction costs was placed there, while operation and maintenance would be left to the unreliable annual appropriation process -- the opposite of the Lazard-Freres recommendation.

Almost simultaneously with the Weld privatization philosophy, in 1991, federal law changed so that what had been a 90 percent federal contribution was capped at $5.9 billion. This removed cost-control incentives from the Federal Highway Administration, and it became an advocate for expensive add-ons. The cumulative impact of the Weld philosophy and the federal shift was the substantial elimination of any competing competency center for Bechtel.

Effectively, America's largest public works project began with near-total reliance on Bechtel, and weak oversight by the DPW. In 1997, nearly seven years into engineering, the state changed Bechtel's contract to create an ``integrated project management," blending personnel resources of the DPW, the Turnpike Authority, and Bechtel, and blurring Bechtel's legal accountability. This was supposed to make oversight more efficient, but it further weakened checks and balances.

Did the radical privatization approach cause the current problem? The Boston Harbor cleanup, a multibillion-dollar megaproject using many of the same engineering firms and contractors, but using the ``belt-and-suspenders" approach, seemed to avoid quality problems and cost increases. But even if the ambiguous oversight of the Big Dig weakened the ``belt," shouldn't the $2 billion paid to Bechtel to provide the ``suspenders" have been sufficient to deliver a quality job, on time, and within budget?

Many public leaders are now working hard to rectify these problems. The Romney administration has taken responsibility for the safe reopening of the tunnel and providing independent oversight, but it is forced to rely on the Bechtel group responsible for the current situation. No one else can quickly assemble the information to determine what went wrong and how to rectify it.

There needs to be an independent review if the public is to have confidence in the tunnel. The best place to get that, as US Representative Michael Capuano has suggested, is the National Transportation Safety Board. Its mission is focused on safety, and it has no prior involvement in the Big Dig. It can belatedly introduce some checks and balances to make sure nothing like this happens again.

Fred Salvucci, former state secretary of transportation, is a senior lecturer and research associate at MIT.