Dead zones frustrate drivers
Cellphone service lags in tunnels
Five months after Massachusetts Turnpike officials announced that the Big Dig would finally join the digital age and provide cellular service to thousands of commuters this spring, there is no sign the $15 billion tunnels will be wired anytime soon - and no timeline for completing the job.
Since the last completion date was announced, even the century-old T has launched cellular service in downtown subway cars. But for drivers, the frustrating refrain continues: I'm about to lose you. I'm going through a tunnel.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which has been promising cellular service in the tunnels for years, says the responsibility now lies with the four major cellphone companies, which bought the right to wire the tunnels in 2006.
"We can't control the contractors," said Mac Daniel, spokesman for the Turnpike Authority. "It's largely out of our control."
Mark J. Elliot, a spokesman for AT&T,
Until then, drivers are left with a nettlesome dead zone inside the Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. Tunnel, and the tunnel linking the Massachusetts Turnpike with Interstate 93.
"I've actually altered how I go home," said Jim Hall, a Scituate resident who flies out of Logan International Airport two or three times a week for his consulting job.
Hall, 50, said he drives through South Boston, instead of using the Interstate-90 connector, so he can tell his family he has arrived home safely from business trips.
"It doesn't seem to be that difficult to do because it's in the other tunnels," Hall said. "It sounds like it's just not a priority for somebody." Cellphone service is a standard feature in other major tunnels including the Sumner, Callahan, and Ted Williams.
In late October, it appeared the days of short-circuited cellular calls would soon be over, after the companies received federal permission to wire the tunnels. The Federal Highway Administration had held up approval, based on design concerns raised by the fatal 2006 ceiling collapse that killed Milena Del Valle, a 38-year-old Jamaica Plain woman. A week after the approval, Daniel said the companies had told Turnpike officials they would begin by late November and expected the project to take three to six months.
"If you hold us to the 3 to 6 months, that would be perfection," Daniel said this week. "But there's never perfection in the tunnels."
According to statements by Elliot, the companies did not hire a construction firm until January and did not begin construction until February. He declined to answer questions about the company's work schedule, how many workers are on the job, and where the construction is taking place.
Turnpike Authority records show the companies' construction crews have been in the tunnels on overnight work since Feb. 4, laying out the project and installing cable clips and supports. But it is unclear from those records how extensive the tunnel work has been or how many crew members have been involved in the project.
Daniel said the project is 20 percent complete and that the Turnpike is happy that construction - delayed by the cellphone companies' difficulty in hiring a contractor - has made "serious progress." The project, he said, involves laying five miles of cable through the tunnels and building a utility room. Daniel said contractors have installed anchors and hangers in the I-90 connector's ceiling.
Before construction began in February, the companies spent months on "extensive field testing, tunnel reconnaissance, design engineering, and construction planning," according to Elliot's recent statement.
"Given the complexity of the system and the extensive construction work required to be performed throughout the tunnels, installation of the system is expected to take many months," it continued. The statement did not explain the delay in hiring a contractor.
Daniel said complete testing on cellular signals is expected by this fall. But he said the projections are subject to change and would not predict when cellular service will be activated.
The Authority's contract with the cellular companies required the four carriers to pay a combined $1.6 million up-front fee and monthly payments of $11,666 each to provide the service, now standard in tunnels throughout the country. The companies will also pay construction costs, estimated at up to $7.6 million.
The companies made the first payments in November, Daniel said. But there is no penalty for construction delays.
State Senator Michael W. Morrissey, a Quincy Democrat, has been pushing for cellular service in the tunnels for years as a public safety issue. He blames the latest delay on the cellphone companies.
"It boggles my mind that first they were kind of having us push, and try to push the state into this. And we did that," he said. "And puff. Nothing's happening."
At this point, "you can only do so much. It's their money," Morrissey said.
The arrival of cellphone service in the tunnels might not be greeted warmly by some drivers and safety advocates.
The state has spent months debating the safety concerns of too much talking while driving. A bill to require hands-free cellphone devices passed the House in January, but has not come before the Senate. Studies have shown that speaking on cellphones, with or without a hands-free device, increases the risk of a crash. And no researchers defend the use of text messaging devices while driving, a practice banned in the House bill.
J. Wiese, a 35-year-old lighting designer from Waltham, said he would never use a cellphone in the tunnels because he has a company policy against talking on the phone while driving. Jason Chou, 30, of Chestnut Hill, said he tries not to answer his cellphone while driving because it is too much of a distraction.
Still, it remains legal to use a phone and many drivers find themselves with some explaining to do when they drive through the tunnels.
Michael Johnson, 31, a Hyde Park exterminator, likes to check in with his children between jobs.
"I'm on the phone with the kids and [they ask later] 'What happened to you Daddy, why'd you hang up?' "
Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com
