Lessons From America's Most Ambitious Infrastructure Project

"Conceived in the 1970s and finished, more or less, in 2005, the Big Dig is modern America's most ambitious urban-infrastructure project, spanning six presidents and seven governors, costing $14.8 billion, and featuring many never-before-done engineering and construction marvels.

...Every major decision that could conceivably be made on an infrastructure project was made on the Big Dig, from how to pay for it to how to forge the public and political support for it to how to manage its construction and maintenance. Its stewards have encountered every imaginable public-infrastructure pitfall, and fallen into many. The Big Dig's story is an invaluable lesson: How can America invest in infrastructure-and do it smart?"

"...Investors and residents are responding positively to the infrastructure improvement. As the Boston Globe reported in 2004, commercial properties along the old Artery increased in value by 79 percent in 15 years, nearly double the citywide increase of 41 percent. Owners have reconfigured buildings to open views where they once bricked up windows, and are renovating property in other newly accessible parts of Boston. The North End's Italian restaurants are putting sidewalk cafés where they once hid from the Artery. The North End won't be the North End of 1950, though, just because the Artery is gone."