A top federal transportation official on Friday sharply criticized those responsible for managing Boston’s massive Big Dig tunnel project, including a company RTD selected last week to help oversee the Denver area’s $4.7 billion FasTracks transit expansion.
The Big Dig’s “problematic history presents many lessons in how not to manage a public works megaproject,” Transportation Department inspector general Ken Mead told a congressional panel.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority hired the team of Bechtel Corp. and Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc. to provide design and construction oversight for the Big Dig, known officially as the Central Artery Tunnel project.
In more than a decade of design and construction, the Big Dig’s cost ballooned from its original estimate of $2.6 billion to the current price tag of $14.6 billion.
On Wednesday, the Regional Transportation District said the team of Parsons Brinckerhoff and Carter & Burgess will provide “project management” services for FasTracks, which includes construction of at least six new rail lines in the Denver area over the next 12 years.
RTD and the companies still must negotiate final terms of the management contract, but it is expected to be worth tens of millions of dollars to Parsons Brinckerhoff and Carter & Burgess.
Both are national design and engineering firms.
On Friday, Mead said the Bechtel/Parsons team “recently admitted some liability in failing to correct construction defects” on the Big Dig. But generally, the Bechtel/Parsons venture has not been held liable for design errors or omissions that may have contributed to cost overruns on the project.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority’s overly close working relationship with the companies may be responsible, Mead said.
It is not clear if the current budget for the Big Dig will be enough to fix numerous leaks in the tunnel, Mead said.
Officials of Parsons Brinckerhoff could not be reached for comment on Mead’s report.
The firm’s role with the Big Dig had no bearing on RTD’s selection of the firm to help manage FasTracks, Cal Marsella, general manager of the Denver- area transit agency, said Friday.
“We’re looking at the people they’ve assigned to our project and their history,” Marsella said, and RTD was impressed with the track record and skill level of those officials.
Ultimately, the responsibility for building the FasTracks rail corridors “on time and on budget” lies with RTD, Marsella said.
“We fully accept at RTD the responsibility for controlling the quality and the completion of our projects.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
