Boston drivers are split on the Big Dig, poll says
Thirty-nine percent of the people surveyed in a Boston Globe poll said the Big Dig has made it easier to get around the city, but about the same percentage said the massive project wasn't worth the $14.6 billion price tag.
Asked whether the elaborate system of tunnels, bridges, and multilevel interchanges has made it easier to get around Boston today compared with a year ago, 18 percent said it was harder, and 26 percent said traffic was about the same.
But 40 percent of those surveyed said the cost of the project, which has climbed steadily from about $2.4 billion around the time of its inception in the early 1980s, was not worth it. About 33 percent said the project was worth the cost, and 14 percent said it was too soon to tell.
The telephone poll of 400 Boston residents, conducted for the Globe by KRC Communications Research on Aug. 15, 16, and 17, has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.
"I honestly don't think there's been much of an improvement in the key hours in the morning and afternoon. It seems to be the same amount of lanes," said Laura Lynsky, 38, of South Boston, a customer service representative for Federal Express and a respondent in the poll.
Lynsky, who uses Interstate 93 daily to get to Medford and back, bails out of the highway's southbound tunnel and cuts across the Fort Point Channel to get to South Boston because the backups are so frequent.
That situation can be partly attributed to the fact that the project is not complete. The backups in the southbound tunnel result from traffic being squeezed into two lanes while the Dewey Square tunnel portion is being renovated. When the project is finished, possibly next May, there will be five lanes, from the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge to the spot where drivers emerge from underground, south of Chinatown.
The major components of the Big Dig -- the connection from the Massachusetts Turnpike to the Ted Williams Tunnel, the I-93 northbound tunnel, and the I-93 southbound tunnel -- all opened last year, but construction crews are still working on two major portions -- the Dewey Square tunnel section and Leverett Circle.
But even when the project is completed, it won't have been worth the money and trouble, said respondent Ken Rielly, a mechanic from Dorchester.
"I don't think it has made things any better. It doesn't matter which time of day or night; it's jammed, inbound or outbound. It seems to me it's always messed up," he said. "It's not worth the money, the time, the effort. I think the whole thing is a political scam, but I'm a lifelong Massachusetts resident and a pessimist. I know how things work around here."
Still, others have been impressed, citing dramatic drops in travel time, the promise of reduced air pollution, and the open space left by the demolition of the elevated Central Artery.
"I'm a consumer of the Big Dig, and a happy one," said Bruce Berman of Brighton, an environmentalist at the organization Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. "I'm at Costco buying crab claws and came from South Boston to Everett in easily half the time. I commute from Brighton to Fort Point Channel and it takes half the time."
The sharply different perceptions of the Big Dig are the result of a number of factors, Big Dig officials say. The Dewey Square construction is a headache for motorists now, they acknowledge, but when completed, the main part of the Big Dig should flow well in both directions, easily handling more than 200,000 vehicles a day.
Still, some congestion at rush hour is inevitable both north and south of the tunnel, project officials say, because of increasing volumes on roadways that have not been improved.
Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com. 