Officials at the Department of Conservation and Recreation, less than a week after announcing they had postponed plans to rebuild the decaying Storrow Drive Tunnel, said yesterday that the agency will spend $6.8 million on interim repairs.
The tunnel repairs will begin early in 2008 and continue for up to nine months. The repairs will replace deteriorated concrete in the roof and walls and waterproof roof joints to prevent leaks.
The work will be done at night, allowing the tunnel to remain open to traffic during the day, agency officials said.
"These repairs are necessary to keep the Storrow Drive tunnel operational until we begin the full reconstruction," Commissioner Richard K. Sullivan Jr. said in a statement. "We will use the additional time those repairs provide to work through the challenge of managing reconstruction of this heavily traveled roadway."
Officials said the agency has already begun a $430,000 project to repair the 56-year-old tunnel's drainage system and structural beams. Those repairs began Sunday and will continue for about six weeks.
They said the agency is negotiating with an engineering company to review plans for the short-term repair and long-term reconstruction of the tunnel.
As they debate a final plan for reconstructing the tunnel, the officials said they are working with other state agencies to coordinate other road and bridge repairs in the Charles River area without impeding traffic.
"The long-term Storrow Drive solution cannot be realized without considering the entire transportation network," Sullivan said in the statement.
Over the next 15 years, six bridges over the Charles River, as well as the Bowker Overpass that connects Storrow Drive with the Fenway area, will require about $300 million in repairs or reconstruction. The bridges and roads carry more than 440,000 vehicles a day.
Agency officials said preliminary reviews indicate the Craigie Drawbridge and Craigie Dam Bridge will be the first to require reconstruction.
The department, whose plan to run a temporary bypass road across the Charles River Esplanade sparked neighborhood outrage, has delayed filing a key environmental impact report that would have advanced the Storrow Drive tunnel project.
It's not clear when construction will begin to make permanent repairs on the tunnel.
Officials had previously said they expected construction to begin in 2010. 
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