A day after celebrity cop James Crowley's service records were released for public consumption, we got a glimpse at what he gets paid for all of the aggravation the privilege of serving the city of Cambridge. We can thank the Cambridge Chronicle for this list of the salaries of every non-school city worker for FY'09 (7/08-6/09). We know everyone is only really interested in the $114,687.52 Crowley was paid, not to mention the $109,566.93 he took home in 2008. It's noteworthy that around 120 - Bostonist counted quickly - Cambridge employees earned more than Crowley in FY'09.
So, hundreds of Pike employees and retirees get free Fast Lane transponders. Bostonist wants one. State cops rightly get most of the "nonrevenue transponders," as they are called. According to the Herald, 849 of 1,300 Pike salary-takers also get the coveted freebies. Not a typo. Aside from being an extravagant perk, as taxes surge and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is eliminated, could excessive transponder use cause tollbooth backups?
The Boston Herald reports that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority's insurer, Ambac Financial Group, just had its credit downgraded, which might spell trouble for the Pike. Early this year, UBS, a Swiss financial company, demanded a $400 million payment from the Pike, "but eventually backed off because the credit rating of the Pike’s insurer." The lower rating might mean a renewed demand for the payment and an immediate financial crisis at the Turnpike, which just delayed a vote on a toll hike. [Herald]
Deval Patrick wrote an op-ed in the Globe yesterday about reforming Massachusetts transportation. He advocated consolidation and system-wide planning, and emphasized multi-modal transportation. Proposing an elimination of the Turnpike Authority, Patrick outlined a plan to turn over roads that go to Logan and the South Boston Seaport (including Mass Pike east of route 128) to Massport, while the Highway Department would take over the turnpike west of 128. Tolls will be eliminated on the western pike as well, as these funds cannot be used to fund the Big Dig. Other tolls will be implemented to help pay for construction and upkeep. In general, Patrick's plan focused on tolls and roads, not the T.
We were in Detroit for the weekend, and the most frequently asked questions about Boston were "What happened in the Super Bowl?" and "Is that Big Dig thing finally finished?" The latter is easier to answer: No.
Good to know Bostonist isn't the only one who gets nervous driving under the Shaw's in Newton that appears to balance precariously over the Mass Pike. Oh, and through the Prudential Tunnel. And through pretty much any tunnel in this city. The Globe reports today that private businesses are responsible for maintenance of the piece of tunnel that passes under their building.
We interviewed former gubernatorial candidate, businessman, and man-about-the-state Christy Mihos. Mihos has taken an active role against Cape Wind, the proposal to install wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, and he has offered an alternate proposal to install wind turbines at his chain of convenience stores. We told him up front that we were pro-Cape Wind, but we've run a lot of pro-Cape Wind posts, and we wanted to give him equal time to talk about...
It came from the tales of Troop E. WBZ followed a tip that State Troopers were using one of the ventilation facilities constructed as part of the Big Dig for a driving range. What's news to us is the sheer volume of the ventilation buildings that allow for a third floor with 25 foot ceilings. We knew they were big just looking at their protrusions on the surface, but never knew they were that big....
The big news in this mornings papers and airwaves was that a report from the Transportation Finance Commission has released a report that pretty much every state transit authority (including the MBTA, DCR, Turnpike Authority, and Highway Department) is in deficit spending and working to just keep up what they've got going. The deficit spending will result in a projected $19 billion deficit over the next 20 years according to the report. That's just for...
Breaking news out of the tunnels today is that the inevitable legal action is now official. The family of Milena Del Valle, the Jamaica Plain resident killed when ceiling tiles in the I-90 connector tunnel crushed her in July, are suing in a wrongful death case. The legal action names the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, and eight other companies who worked on the project as responsible for the death of Del Valle. There was...
The Big Dig is still making the news and it's supposed to be finished already. Delay after delay we thought we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, especially when they officially named the tunnel, but the job is still not done. Today the Big Dig headlines revolved around the millions of gallons of water that are still leaking into the underground roadways. A week ago it was the lagging state of the anticipated park construction.
Last month, fundraising for the Boston Museum Project reached the $4 million mark, a milestone for them, but still just a fraction of the $70 million projected total cost. The goal of the Boston Museum Project (BMP) is to construct a new museum showcasing Boston’s past, present, and future on parcel 12 of the soon-to-be created Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.
Well, as if Bostonians haven't gone through enough with this whole Big Dig fiasco, another story has been outed by the Boston Globe today about how I-93 tunnels are now being called unsafe. Jack Lemley, who has been the big engineering honcho specifically dealing with the new tunnels, released a letter on March 9, revealing that he now feels that maybe they aren't that safe after all. (This is the same man who went to Beacon Hill this past fall and convinced lawmakers that they were completely safe.) Lemley claims he's changed his mind after the recent discovery of leaks throughout the tunnels; adding to that, he says the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority won't allow him to see records and data pertaining to these leaks, and that they don't even have a clue as to what they are going to do to stop them. Of course this has riled up the boys over at the MTA even more; Authority Chairman Matthew Amorello claims he hasn't gotten the letter yet and remains to stand by the idea that the tunnels are safe. What's Beacon's Hill take on all this? Gov. Romney has previously asked for Amorello to step down since all these problems started. Amorello refuses to and here we all go again. One big circus, otherwise known as "The Big Dig."
"The sun is hitting at a more direct angle. It has less of the atmosphere to go through," Simpson said. "It's enough to do its thing - which is melt the snow."
Well, we all know about the Big Dig. Lots of constructions, lots of money (14.7 billion dollars to be exact), and lots of complaining. Just when the Mass Turnpike Authority (MTA) was looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, a leak sprung up in their plans, literally. The leak in the I-93 tunnel was only the start to the troubles of the biggest civil project in U.S. history.
