The Big Dig's Hidden Legacy: How Boston Learned to Bury Its Mistakes

The Big Dig, officially known as the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, is typically remembered for its cost overruns and construction delays. But twenty years after its completion, a different story emerges—one of urban healing, unexpected consequences, and the complex relationship between infrastructure and community.

The Weight of Concrete

In 1954, when the Central Artery first opened, it was hailed as a marvel of modern engineering. The elevated highway carried Interstate 93 directly through downtown Boston, connecting the suburbs to the city center with brutal efficiency. What planners didn't anticipate was how completely it would sever Boston's historic neighborhoods from each other and from the harbor.

"The Central Artery was like a concrete wall running through the heart of the city," recalls urban planner Jane Morrison, who worked on early Big Dig planning in the 1980s. "It didn't just carry traffic—it carried away the connections between neighborhoods that had existed for centuries."

The North End, home to Italian-American families for generations, found itself cut off from downtown. Chinatown was squeezed between highways and rail lines. The waterfront, once the city's economic heart, became an isolated industrial zone invisible to most residents.

By the 1980s, the elevated highway carried 190,000 vehicles daily through a corridor designed for 75,000. Traffic crawled at an average speed of 14.4 miles per hour during peak hours. The structure itself was deteriorating, raining concrete debris onto the streets below.

Going Underground

The solution proposed in 1985 seemed impossibly ambitious: bury the entire Central Artery in a tunnel system beneath the city, remove the elevated highway, and create new parkland on the surface. The project would require digging beneath Boston's harbor, threading tunnels around subway lines and building foundations, and keeping traffic flowing throughout construction.

"Everyone thought we were crazy," admits Morrison. "Moving eight lanes of interstate traffic underground while keeping the city running? It had never been attempted on this scale."

The technical challenges were staggering. Engineers had to freeze harbor water to dig beneath it. They used "slurry walls"—trenches filled with mud to hold back groundwater while workers built tunnel sections. The entire project required removing 16 million cubic yards of soil and rock, enough to fill a football stadium 48 stories high.

The Human Cost of Ambition

But the Big Dig's real cost wasn't measured in dollars or cubic yards of dirt. It was measured in the sixteen years that construction dominated daily life for hundreds of thousands of Bostonians.

"My kids grew up thinking construction was just what cities looked like," says North End resident Tony Capobianco, whose family restaurant survived the construction years despite losing foot traffic for over a decade. "Every day was dust, noise, detours. We lost customers, lost neighbors who couldn't take it anymore."

The Greenway, as envisioned, would connect Boston Common to the harbor with an unbroken chain of parks. But during construction, the area became a maze of fences, equipment, and excavated dirt. Small businesses closed. Residents moved away. Entire blocks became construction zones for years at a time.

The financial costs spiraled from an initial estimate of $2.8 billion to a final tab of $15 billion. Political careers ended over the overruns. Federal oversight intensified. Boston became synonymous with infrastructure excess.

What Rose from the Ruins

When the last section of elevated highway came down in 2007, Boston didn't just remove a barrier—it created a laboratory for urban regeneration. The Rose Kennedy Greenway stretches 1.5 miles from Chinatown to the North End, connecting neighborhoods that had been divided for half a century.

The transformation was immediately visible. Property values in adjacent areas began rising faster than the city average. New restaurants opened in the North End as foot traffic returned. The harbor, invisible from downtown for decades, became part of the city's visual landscape again.

"The Greenway gave us something we'd forgotten we'd lost," says Morrison, now retired but still involved in park planning. "Not just green space, but the ability to walk from neighborhood to neighborhood without crossing a highway."

The park hosts farmers markets, festivals, and art installations. Food trucks line the pathways during lunch hours. Families from Chinatown picnic next to business workers from the Financial District. The North End's elderly Italian residents sit on benches watching children from every corner of the city play in the fountains.

The Unintended Consequences

But the Big Dig's legacy is more complex than its boosters anticipated. The same forces that brought new life to previously divided neighborhoods also brought displacement and gentrification.

The North End, once a working-class Italian enclave, now has some of the highest rents in Boston. Chinatown faces pressure from developers seeking to capitalize on the area's improved connectivity. Long-time residents who endured the construction years find themselves priced out during the recovery.

"We fought to save our neighborhood from the highway," says Capobianco. "Now we're fighting to save it from the success."

This tension reflects a broader challenge in urban policy: infrastructure projects intended to heal communities can also transform them beyond recognition. The Big Dig removed a physical barrier, but it couldn't address the economic forces that reshape neighborhoods once they become desirable again.

Lessons from Below

Twenty years later, what can other cities learn from Boston's buried highway?

First, that infrastructure's hidden costs often exceed its visible ones. The Big Dig's $15 billion price tag included financial costs but not the social costs of sixteen years of disrupted lives and displaced businesses.

Second, that removing highways creates opportunities but doesn't guarantee outcomes. The Rose Kennedy Greenway succeeded because of sustained community engagement, dedicated funding for maintenance, and programming that serves diverse populations. Without those elements, reclaimed land can become vacant lots or luxury development sites.

Third, that urban healing takes time. The Big Dig's construction began in 1991, the last highway sections were removed in 2007, and the full Greenway wasn't completed until 2013. Neighborhoods needed additional years to adapt to their new geography.

Finally, that infrastructure decisions have consequences that last generations. The Central Artery divided Boston for fifty years. Its removal has been reshaping the city for twenty years more. The children playing in Greenway fountains today will inherit whatever comes next.

The Deeper Dig

Boston's Big Dig represents both the potential and the perils of ambitious infrastructure projects. It proved that cities can successfully remove highways that no longer serve their communities. It demonstrated that reclaiming urban land can catalyze broader neighborhood revitalization.

But it also revealed that the communities most affected by infrastructure often have the least control over its transformation. The residents who endured decades of highway noise and construction dust may not be the ones who benefit from the parks and property value increases that follow.

The real legacy of the Big Dig isn't the tunnels beneath Boston or even the parks above them. It's the recognition that infrastructure is never just about moving traffic efficiently from point A to point B. It's about how communities live, grow, and change together.

Standing on the Greenway today, watching children play where highway traffic once roared, it's easy to see the project as an unqualified success. But the full story—like the tunnels beneath the city—runs deeper than what's visible on the surface.

"We buried our mistakes," says Maria Santos, still living in the North End after all these years. "The question is whether we learned from them."

The Big Dig's Hidden Legacy is part of Atlas Urbium's series on highway removal and urban transformation. Read more about infrastructure healing in New Orleans, Rochester, and Portland in our ongoing coverage of cities reclaiming their streets.

References:

• Salvucci, Frederick P. "The Big Dig: Learning from a Mega-Project." Journal of the American Planning Association, 2009.
• Flint, Anthony. "Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder." Random House, 2009.
• Boston Globe. "Big Dig Timeline: A Project Decades in the Making." 2007.
• Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. "Annual Impact Report." 2023.
• Harvard Kennedy School. "The Big Dig Economic Impact Assessment." 2015.
• Data sources: Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, Boston Planning & Development Agency, Federal Highway Administration

Further Reading:

• Rose Kennedy Greenway - Wikimedia Commons - Extensive photo documentation of the Greenway transformation
• Big Dig - Wikimedia Commons - Historical photos and construction documentation
• Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway - Wikipedia - Comprehensive overview of the park's development and features
• Congress for New Urbanism - Boston Case Study - Analysis of the Big Dig as highway removal precedent