The Central Artery/Tunnel Project, also known as the Big Dig, is one of the most expensive, technically challenging, and largest public projects in American history. The Big Dig was a super-project that was created to reroute the “Central Artery of Interstate 93, the main roadway through the core of the city, into the 1.5 mile Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel.” The construction of the Big Dig “untangled the co-mingled” traffic in Boston, Massachusetts and resulted in a 62% decrease in vehicle hours of travel and reduced the afternoon peak hour by a massive 85.6%.
The highway planning of the Big Dig started in 1982 with the actual construction starting in 1991. The Big Dig was initially planned to be finalized in 1998 with the estimated total cost of 2.8 billion (7.8 billion adjusted for inflation to today’s dollar value) but due to cost overruns, design flaws, criminal arrests and even one death the construction of the highway was delayed. After all the delays, the Big Dig was finally completed in 2007 at a cost of 8.08 billion (20.5 billion in today’s dollar value). After the Big Dig was completed, it cost nearly 21 billion dollars, had taken nearly 20
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The public works commissioner in 1930 when the idea of the big dig first arose was William Callahan he supported an elevated expressway which eventually was constructed in-between downtown Boston and the waterfront the project faced numerous environmental and engineering complications the area in which the tunnels were to be excavated was mostly landfills and included two subway lines as well as an uncountable number of pipes and utility lines that would need to be moved or replaced. Tunnel workers encountered many unforeseen geological and archaeological hurdles, including glacial debris, foundations of buried houses and a number of sunken ships lying in the excavation
Humans should not bring back extinct creatures since they can become invasive. If humans brought back a mammoth where would they keep it? Would it become invasive? As we all know, the mammoth was the biggest land mammal to roam the Earth. This makes it very easy for the mammoth to become, or to be invasive. If the mammoth is invasive, it would take up land, use limiting factors in that ecosystem, and possibly harm or kill other animals. This would end in a terrible result. Another example is the Megalania. The Megalania is a reptile (lizard) that went extinct around 30,000 years ago. According to www.list25.com, “Scientific estimates regarding the size of the lizard vary greatly but it probably could have been about 25 feet long which would
Some stakeholders in the Northern Gateway Project would counter with defending the Enbridge as they plan on using thicker pipe and horizontal drilling to bore beneath 30 rivers, instead of passing through them. Though they are changing their pipe sizes and thickness, this new material is being used for the first time and could potentially become a disaster if the pipe breaks and leaves over the ocean, rivers and/or environments. (5)
The Tunnel rested above the preexisting, subterranean subway line. These steel tunnel sections were assembled in Baltimore, Maryland, over 650 kilometers away from Boston, and then transported by boat (Hall, 2006).
America made a multibillion dollar investment when the Federal Highway Act of 1956 was signed into law by Dwight Eisenhower. This was a milestone for America, connecting the nation like it had never been before. Since this time, however, the United States has done very little in terms of infrastructure investment. Currently, the American Society of Civil Engineers ranks America’s infrastructure as a D + (2013). American no longer leads the world in the best roads, airports, rail, or bridges. This is a serious problem that will lead to security, environmental, economic, and political issues if not addressed fully and swiftly. America needs to act promptly to revive the nation’s infrastructure system before additional nations surpass the US while the cost becomes too big to bear.
This made it especially hard to dig it up to make way for the future canal. Trains had to travel to different levels of this in order to take out all the rocks and soil from digging out this cut. The total amount of rocks and soil that was taken out was 100 million cubic yards which is enough to fill the empire State building 76 times. This was one other challenge that the workers had to get through in order to continue their work on the Panama Canal.
Boston’s Big Dig was a massive road infrastructure project planned to improve the flow of traffic, alleviating chronic congestion across Boston and the surrounding commuter areas, and to replace the outdated elevated Central Artery road that effectively split the city in half. The plan was to replace the Existing Central Artery, a crumbling elevated six-lane highway, with an extended underground highway, and a 14-lane two bridge crossing that would Extend Massachusetts Interstate 90 from its former end, south of downtown Boston, through a tunnel under South Boston and Boston Harbor. This project would prove to be a technological marvel and the most technically challenging infrastructure ever undertaken in the US. Building a tunnel underneath
In 1813 a man by the name of John James Audubon witnessed a beautiful sight. Pigeons filled the skies of Ohio. Men and boys would shoot at the pigeons and the number decreased significantly. In 2003, Spanish and French scientists were focused on a wild goat named the bucardo. When the last bucardo died they tried to clone it, but it died after birth. Scientists have been trying to brink extinct animals back by using the preserved DNA. The most famous attempt is to bring back the Wolly Mammoth by using the preserved DNA found in chunks in Siberia. The use the Mammoth’s DNA and mix it with that of an elephant, the mammoth’s most closest living
The construction was completed in five phases so it would be less disruptive and so that the funding for each section would be secured. “The total cost for the initial three sections and the tunnel, including the right of way, design and administration was $10,627,006. Approximately half of the funding ($5,860,625) came from the City of Seattle, with the remainder from the Washington State Motor Vehicle Fund ($2,459,783) and the Federal Public Roads Administration ($2,306,608).” (HAER).
Laying down 26,160 cubic yards of concrete for the tunnel and 180,000 cubic yards of concrete for the roadways. 49,600 tons of Asphalt were also poured for the
When one night felt like a week, when one person is able to find the pleasantness in such hard and grueling times, they were able to let their human spirit shine through at times like these. During World War II, a dictator who goes by the name of Adolf Hitler, he ordered all European Jews to be persecuted, killed or sent to concentration camps to work long, hard days of labor. Despite the struggle, writers like Etty Hillesum and Anne Frank were able to write about joyous topics and tell stories about the good they had in their lives. The “Big Things” that allowed them to do this and feel this way is love, laughter and nature, those thing play a huge part in letting your spirit triumph.
Do you know the dugong has a nickname? The nickname is a sea cow because they graze on the sea grass like cows graze on grass. Dugongs are mammals that live in salt water. This essay will provide information on the dugong and discuss its appearance, habitat and diet, and give you some interesting facts about it.
Supergranny was born in 1936 in the city miami and she started floating immeditley and by the time she was 2 she was able to fly as fast as 250mph and her powers got stronger each and every birthday she had . Supergranny fights superman because he’s jealous and here’s how it went down: ¨so we meet again¨ says superman and they fight and supergranny wins and supergranny says “and don’t come back”.
Everyone knew the two iconic buildings that stood in New York City. Located in the heart of Manhattan the twin towers were finished in 1973. Both buildings stood had 110 stories, and had over 10 million square feet of space. Each day more than 50,000 people worked in the towers and over 200,000 people came to the visit the towers. The construction for the twin tower began in February of 1967. The ground in Manhattan was mostly landfill the engineers building the project had to dig around 70 feet to reach solid bedrock. All in all, 1 million cubic yards of landfill had to be removed. The Port Authority used this landfill to create the $90 million worth of land that would become Battery Park City. The large trenches that were dug were filled
The two projects highlighted are the Delaware Aqueduct in upstate New York and the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado. Both projects were an evolution in tunnel design and methods used were from “lessons learned” on past tunneling ventures.
It all started in 1917 when San Francisco City Engineer M.M. O’Shaughnessy took charge of the idea of building the Golden Gate Bridge. O’Shaughnessy decided to go to famous bridge builder Joseph Strauss with the proposed idea, and the project began. Being the City Engineer, O’Shaughnessy thought that he would fit best to be the Chief Engineer of the project. But O’Shaughnessy later lost the center of attention that would then be given to Strauss awarding him with the position of Chief Engineer. After all of this Strauss began creating what is now one of the most significant structures ever built in the United States. The beginning estimated costs for the construction of the bridge was from $25 to $30 million with an estimated span of about