When the clock runs out on 2007, Boston will quietly mark the end of one of the most tumultuous eras in the city’s history: The Big Dig, the nation’s most complex and costliest highway project, will officially come to an end.
Don’t expect any champagne toasts.
After a history marked by engineering triumphs, tunnel leaks, epic traffic jams, last year’s death of a motorist crushed by falling concrete panels and a price tag that soared from $2.6 billion to a staggering $14.8 billion, there’s little appetite for celebration.
Civil and criminal cases stemming from the July 2006 tunnel ceiling collapse continue, though on Monday the family of Milena Del Valle announced a $6 million settlement with Powers Fasteners, the company that manufactured the epoxy blamed by investigators for the accident.
Lawsuits are pending against other Big Dig contractors, and Powers Fasteners still faces a manslaughter indictment.
Officially, Monday marks the end of the joint venture that began construction in 1991 and teamed megaproject contractor Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff with the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to build the dizzying array of underground highways, bridges, ramps and a new tunnel under Boston Harbor — all while the city remained open for business.
The project was so complex it’s been likened to performing open heart surgery on a patient while the patient is wide awake.
Some didn’t know if they’d live to see it end.
Enza Merola had a front-row seat on the Big Dig from the front window of her pastry shop — stacked neatly with tiramisu, sfogliatelle and brightly colored Italian cookies — in Boston’s North End.
During the toughest days of the project, the facade of Marie’s Pastry Shop, named after her sister, was obscured from view.
The only way customers could find the front door was along a treacherous path through heavy construction.
“For a while we thought we weren’t going to make it,” Merola said. “But you know, we hung in there.”
