0:00

Everyone wondered how Dixon

0:02

City comp trawler Rita Crundwell could

0:04

afford so many horses.

0:06

The rumor we had that she had befriended

0:08

some rich little old lady and she had left

0:10

her a lot of money. Somebody thought that her

0:12

family had bought stock in Campbell's Soup.

0:15

I had heard something to do with like a

0:17

cell phone company. Like every time that cell

0:19

phone rang, like she made money. Like

0:21

any cell phone? Kind of, yeah. I know that sounds

0:23

ridiculous.

0:24

To find out the truth, listen to Crooked City,

0:26

Dixon, Illinois, wherever you get your

0:28

podcasts. Support for The Big

0:31

Dig comes from Cambridge Savings Bank,

0:33

where they are committed to your financial well-being,

0:36

and community is at the core of everything

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they do. Cambridge Savings Bank.

0:41

Always you.

0:42

More at cambridgesavings.com.

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Member FDIC.

0:50

The first recorded

0:53

use of the phrase Big Dig was

0:55

in a WGBH TV special

0:58

from 1988.

1:02

This was a few years before construction

1:05

began, and also the

1:07

year I was born. This

1:09

is all very familiar to Boston. Massive

1:11

construction projects changing the face

1:13

of the city. But not since

1:15

the back bay was filled in or the city

1:18

subway system built has there been anything

1:20

like what's about to happen. As I

1:22

watch this special now, knowing

1:24

what's about to happen, knowing how things

1:26

will go, I'm really struck

1:29

by the narrative around the Big Dig at this

1:31

time, in the 80s, and how

1:33

different it is from the narrative as I

1:36

remember it in the

1:37

90s and 2000s.

1:40

The old narrative is pretty much summed

1:42

up in the title of the special. The

1:45

question is, will Boston survive

1:47

the Big Dig?

1:50

You know, the story of the project,

1:52

in theory, was supposed to be the

1:54

city of Boston is going to come to a grinding halt. Rick

1:57

Domino was transportation commissioner

1:59

for the city of Boston.

1:59

of Boston in those years leading up

2:02

to the big dig. You won't be able to move.

2:04

Business as we know it will come to an end. This

2:08

project is impacting 19 different

2:10

neighborhood areas in our city. I mean, building

2:13

a tunnel through a dense city is no

2:15

small thing. People were reasonably

2:17

worried about noise, power outages,

2:20

about the traffic during the long years of

2:22

construction, what all this would mean

2:24

for commuters, for tourism, for small

2:26

businesses. Millions of rats

2:29

living underground will have to be contained. There

2:31

was a theory that all the digging would

2:33

force millions of rats up into

2:36

the streets of Boston. So I want you to be

2:38

concerned about what are you going to do about the million rats?

2:40

That's what the story was supposed to be. Traffic,

2:44

parking, noise, rats.

2:50

And you know what you didn't hear as much about

2:52

in those days? Are you concerned about

2:54

the cost for this project?

2:55

What is the cost? I think the costs are being

2:59

pretty well taken care of by the federal

3:01

and state sharing. I'm more concerned about the traffic

3:03

impacts.

3:05

The cost at that point in 1988 was an academic

3:07

concern, but

3:11

not for law.

3:18

From GBH News, this is the

3:20

Big Dig, a study in American

3:23

infrastructure. I mean, costs. When

3:27

I talk to people about the Big Dig

3:29

today, if they know just one

3:31

thing about it, they know it was really

3:34

expensive, almost $15 billion

3:37

not counting interest. In

3:40

the public consciousness, that one

3:42

piece of the story has become

3:45

the story. The obvious

3:47

question to ask, of course, is

3:49

why did it cost so much? And

3:51

there are many answers. But the

3:54

more interesting question to me is

3:56

why did the cost matter so much?

3:59

How did that happen? become the story because

4:02

it was not inevitable. This

4:05

is part six, the up-down

4:07

charts.

4:21

The big digs cost crisis

4:23

had a long fuse that burned for

4:25

many years, but it was lit

4:28

in 1993. That

4:30

was the year Jim Carasciotis, the

4:32

notoriously aggressive Secretary

4:34

of Transportation, finally settled

4:37

that thorniest and most controversial

4:39

piece of the whole project, the

4:42

Charles River crossing. Remember

4:44

Scheme Z, the vindictive parking

4:46

lot owner? That controversy. After

4:49

three years of debate, it

4:51

was over. The decision on the Charles

4:53

River crossing was very real because

4:55

at that point I knew that

4:58

we were totally in the game. At

5:00

last, Carasciotis could define

5:03

the full scope of the project. He could

5:05

wrap his hands around it and say, this, this

5:08

is what we're going to build. And

5:10

I also knew that

5:13

it was the last opportunity to

5:17

meaningfully adjust the

5:19

project budget.

5:21

And Bechtel came in with

5:24

staff and I said, so what's this

5:26

going to cost? Bechtel, remember,

5:28

was the private company managing the

5:30

project. And apparently they

5:32

were optimistic that day. Just add

5:35

a few hundred million to the existing budget.

5:37

That should cover the new bridge design and

5:39

we'll be good to go. Thank you very much. I said,

5:42

you guys have rocks in your head. Carasciotis,

5:45

who was already experiencing the messy

5:47

reality of actual construction, could

5:50

see that those numbers were not realistic.

5:53

I mean, instinctively, I knew that

5:55

they were off, that it was going to be more.

5:59

And I will be.

6:02

the

8:00

back by the word and reputation

8:03

of jim carrey sales department

8:05

and jim carr c i spent about thirty

8:07

seconds left with your like care sealed us

8:09

must have known that there were a thousand

8:11

things sick to go wrong a thousand when

8:13

the cost could go up but

8:15

he state himself to that number nevertheless

8:19

he owned and and that

8:21

was my job and i don't apologize

8:23

for

8:30

with the charles river crossing back

8:32

and work could finally

8:35

begin on putting the central artery

8:37

underground so everything

8:40

we talked about in the last episode like

8:42

the fort point channel that was

8:44

all for the harbor tunnel over to the airport

8:46

the other half of the project

8:49

interesting stuff but for me

8:51

the central artery is the main event

8:54

this was the idea that set our whole

8:56

story in motion and now promise

8:59

to transform downtown boston

9:03

were talking about a mile and a half of

9:05

highway eight to ten lanes wide

9:07

with on ramps off ramps interchanges

9:10

and all the trimmings now being

9:12

stuffed into the soil of one

9:14

of the oldest cities in america under

9:16

hundreds of years worth of cobblestones

9:19

and rubble sneaking between

9:21

skyscrapers dodging subway

9:23

lines and all of the business

9:26

of that city went on non

9:28

stop burying

9:30

the central artery was such a huge

9:32

project that the construction work

9:35

was broken down into six major

9:37

contracts each done by different

9:39

companies so that all six sections

9:42

could be built simultaneously the

9:45

first contract was awarded in

9:47

nineteen ninety five for the southernmost

9:49

peace running underneath atlanta

9:52

gas atlanta gal we were

9:54

the first big contract

9:57

bill womack was v p of operations

10:00

the company leading the contract and don't

10:02

hold me to these numbers but like three hundred

10:04

and seventy million dollars

10:07

three hundred and seventy eight

10:09

actually just for one section

10:11

out of six check check check

10:15

at least that's what is supposed to be

10:17

could use the first show me around or

10:20

to get your heart out of muslims as as frank

10:23

martinez score the foreman on atlantic

10:25

as meaning he was down in the whole

10:27

supervising work for over nine

10:30

years a decade of his life

10:32

on this one job martinez

10:35

is still a former and when we met

10:37

he was working on some new escalators

10:40

for transit station is

10:42

about how deeper was in your work on the big dig

10:44

our on our the big there was a lot zebra

10:47

he calls his job the many dig

10:50

because it's just around the corner from the

10:52

old artery or i hear martinez

10:55

told me just paying down in the soil

10:57

again brings back memories will

11:00

assess it off matt

11:03

henry's nightmares less first

11:13

of all before any real are reconstruction can

11:15

begin all the utilities along

11:17

the pathway have to be relocating step

11:19

one was utilities

11:22

gas thermal electric water

11:24

telephone sewer line will be

11:26

reroute twenty nine miles of

11:28

pipes and cables criss crossing

11:30

through the ground for the tunnel was supposed

11:33

to go all had to be reorganized

11:35

in a recent survey of consumer concerns

11:38

loss of telephone service rated the highest

11:40

particularly this was potentially

11:43

one of the most disruptive parts of the

11:45

whole project because he's

11:47

utilities were talking about serve

11:49

the whole downtowns pierce

11:51

a water main you get a flood cotton

11:54

electrical lines get a blackouts

11:56

tear up the wrong fiber optic cable

11:59

you shut down

15:59

every bump, every deviation

16:02

from the plans, turned into what's

16:04

called a change order. Essentially

16:07

a request by the contractor for more

16:09

money to cover whatever the issue is. But

16:12

with the big dig, the cost of

16:14

all those changes became magnified

16:17

because there was incredible pressure to keep

16:20

the various contracts in sync

16:22

with each other. If one section

16:24

of the tunnel fell behind the others, that

16:26

threw off the whole plan. You'd have a tunnel

16:29

with a gap in the middle of it. So

16:31

every time there's a delay under Atlantic

16:33

Ave, say from water pumping, unexpected

16:36

utilities, that delay

16:39

had to be made up for. We work

16:42

as many as 90 hours a week.

16:44

That meant overtime, 15 hour

16:46

days, 90 hour weeks, whatever

16:49

it took really to make up that time

16:51

and get the contract back on schedule.

16:56

When I lived in the house, the kids were sleeping.

16:59

By the time I get home, they were already sleeping

17:02

because they had to go to school the next morning. So yeah.

17:06

Some days Frank's wife would bring

17:08

the kids over to Atlantic Ave in the

17:10

middle of the day so they could all at

17:12

least have lunch together. That's

17:15

basically how he watched his kids grow

17:17

up, over Burger King and

17:19

Chinese food in the South Station food

17:21

court. All

17:27

that overtime, all those extra

17:29

shifts, they became part of the

17:31

cost of these change orders. So

17:34

as you continue the progress in the field,

17:37

the change orders continue to mount up.

17:40

Those change orders made their way to Bill

17:42

Womack, who would then present

17:44

them to Bechtel Parsons and the state.

17:47

The dynamic here is exactly what you'd

17:49

expect. The contractors ask

17:51

for more money, Bechtel and the state push

17:53

back. Bechtel even had buttons

17:56

made up for the project staff with the

17:58

word change on them. and aligned

18:00

through it. As it turned out, we

18:04

had hundreds of thousands,

18:06

tens of millions, hundreds

18:09

of millions of dollars worth of changes.

18:12

Just for the Atlantic A.V. contract. Everyone

18:16

had to acknowledge that some of these changes

18:18

were justified, that the job

18:20

was more difficult than anticipated

18:23

in that original bid. And at the

18:25

end of the day, it ended up at $580

18:27

million in round numbers. So

18:31

it almost doubled in the process

18:34

of building it, just looking for changes.

18:37

Now imagine this same process playing

18:39

out across a dozen major construction

18:42

contracts and dozens of smaller ones.

18:45

Every day something unexpected. Every

18:47

day a change. Every day a delay.

18:51

And yet there was something mysterious

18:53

going on. The

18:56

cost of an individual contract

18:58

might go up, but the official

19:01

cost of the whole project didn't

19:03

budge. For six

19:05

years, from 1993 all the way through 1999, the

19:07

official cost estimate was really only

19:13

adjusted to account for inflation. What

19:16

I'm happy to report is that this project is

19:18

on time. Here's Carisiotis

19:20

in 1998 reiterating his

19:22

promise to business leaders. It

19:25

said in 1993 that this project

19:27

would cost $7.7 billion plus inflation. It

19:31

still does. And it went

19:33

well beyond just assurances and

19:35

promises. I think Joe Malone's running lights here.

19:39

When a candidate for governor named Joe Malone

19:42

questioned the project finances, Carisiotis

19:45

called into a live radio show and

19:48

berated him on air until Malone

19:50

hung up. When a sitting congressman

19:53

named Jim McGovern dared to comment on

19:55

project finances, Carisiotis

19:57

responded with a three-word message.

19:59

vote

20:00

gym stop whining it

20:03

was never a conversation it's just

20:05

a rebuke you're wrong we're

20:08

on budget i mean he could say that

20:10

and i had a report it's rhetoric how to do

20:12

that was going to be the case by

20:15

the late nineties to reporters

20:17

on the big dig be tom palmer

20:19

of the globe and laura brown of the herald's

20:22

were both getting suspicious about the cost

20:24

i had sources who were telling me the

20:27

cost was way above

20:29

what he was telling us

20:31

the real number was gonna come out

20:33

but i didn't have it on the record

20:36

and we were also saying that

20:38

story

20:42

i would say that the basic

20:44

storytelling ingredients are

20:46

now in place mystery

20:48

and conflict an obvious

20:51

tension in need of a resolution

20:54

the cost of the project had become

20:56

a story a good story and

20:59

at the center of it all was a tragic

21:02

hero perhaps an anti hero

21:04

who had backed himself into a corner

21:07

gym ferriss used to tell people

21:09

that not only was he greets you

21:11

spartan

21:13

andy paving worked as a spokesperson

21:15

for the big dig and with the mothers

21:17

told the children the warriors

21:21

was to come home with

21:23

your shield or on us so

21:25

do with your shield or on it means like

21:28

you're fighting or you're dead you

21:30

either die in battle are you come on service

21:32

and if you are not victorious you

21:35

don't come home and that's how he approach

21:37

public life

21:39

so gonna it did some corporate

21:41

that the lead

21:43

singer in every greek tragedy has

21:46

one character flaw the heartier that

21:48

leads to his downfall

21:51

a a guess it was hubris

21:54

it was the belief that

21:56

is true force of personality

21:59

He would hold the line on what this project

22:02

was going to cost. I

22:05

think that's what Diderman.

22:24

A new character enters the story

22:27

in 1999. He

22:29

was an old friend and loyal ally

22:31

of Carasiodas, but nevertheless,

22:34

he would bring about a reckoning, a

22:37

crisis almost a decade in the making

22:39

that sealed the narrative of the Big Dig.

22:43

His name is Pat Moynihan.

22:45

So I want to fast forward a bit to when

22:48

Jim asked you to be project director

22:51

for the Central Artory and Tunnel Project. Do you remember

22:53

how that played out? I

22:56

was reluctant to say

22:58

the least. My wife said I was crazy

23:01

to take the job, but I felt as though Jim

23:04

asked me to do it, so I was going to do it. Moynihan

23:07

was taking over from Peter Zook, who

23:09

you may recall from the last episode. Zook

23:12

had really shepherded the Big Dig from

23:14

an idea on the page to the

23:17

largest construction project in America.

23:20

But now he was moving on. And

23:25

so when he left the project,

23:27

I asked Peter, anything

23:29

I should be concerned about? And

23:34

his response to me was, nothing you can't

23:36

handle, Pat. I said, okay.

23:45

When Moynihan became project director,

23:48

the official cost of the Big Dig stood

23:50

at $10.8 billion.

23:53

I know that sounds like a big jump up from 7.7,

23:57

which it is, but believe it

23:59

or not, that mostly just from

24:01

inflation. The

24:03

big dig actually caught a tough break on this

24:05

because as the project was underway,

24:08

Federal Highway rewrote the rules on them

24:11

and decided that all cost estimates

24:13

now had to account for future inflation.

24:17

That's part of the reason the big dig numbers look

24:19

so bad, is that they straddle different

24:22

systems of accounting. In

24:24

any case, that 10.8 figure

24:27

now included inflation all

24:29

the way through the end of the project. But

24:32

if you peek under the hood, the underlying

24:34

assumptions about the work being done

24:36

and the money it would take had

24:39

not really changed. When

24:41

Moynihan came in the door, he had no

24:43

concrete reason to doubt that 10.8 number.

24:47

But then, in his first few weeks on

24:49

the job, project staff sat

24:51

him down and introduced him to

24:54

something they called the up-down

24:56

charts.

25:00

The up-down charts were the clever

25:02

bit of accounting that had allowed the

25:04

official cost estimates to hold steady

25:07

for so long. The

25:09

upside of the chart showed the change

25:11

orders and delays, things that were pushing

25:14

the cost up. But then all

25:16

those increases were matched, dollar

25:18

for dollar, on the downside with

25:21

things like using less tile

25:23

on the tunnel walls, selling off

25:25

air right for development over the tunnel,

25:27

shifting expenses to other state agencies.

25:31

In theory, everything balanced out

25:33

and the total cost remained 10.8 billion.

25:38

That was a bit of a shock though, you know, that

25:40

there was these variances,

25:42

which of course I really didn't know anything about. Moynihan

25:45

was worried that the way things were going, the

25:48

downside wouldn't balance out the upside,

25:51

that there was a gap. But he couldn't

25:53

take that news straight to Jim Carasciotas.

25:56

Not just yet. Moynihan had

25:58

to be sure. I kept my

26:01

head down, worked it. He

26:03

went instead to Bechtel Parsons, the

26:05

joint venture managing the whole big dig.

26:08

He said to the look, you know,

26:10

when was the last time that you really took this

26:12

project and did the bottoms

26:14

up review, right? When

26:17

was the last time you did that? Their

26:19

response? 1993, six years ago at this point. Moynihan

26:25

told them to get to work. Every contract,

26:28

every element, you need to go

26:30

through this project with a fine tooth comb

26:32

and come up with a number. They

26:37

spent months reviewing every expense

26:40

and Moynihan became increasingly dismayed

26:42

with what he was learning. There were huge

26:45

costs not even accounted for in the

26:47

budget and some of these costs went

26:49

back years. In a moment

26:51

of frustration, Moynihan fired

26:54

off a letter to his predecessor, Peter

26:56

Zook, the one who had told him, nothing

26:59

you can't handle, Pat. Now

27:01

Moynihan responded, quote, Peter,

27:03

I can't tell you how disappointed

27:06

I am. As far as

27:08

Moynihan could tell, none of these

27:10

additional costs had even been reported

27:13

to Jim Carasciotis. No

27:15

one it seems wanted to bring him bad

27:17

news. As

27:22

late as the summer of 1999,

27:24

as the bottom-up review was underway, Carasciotis

27:28

was out front dismissing reports by

27:30

the Globe and the state inspector general

27:33

that the cost was going to be higher than 10.8.

27:36

I think unfortunately Jim Carasciotis

27:38

made the price the yardstick

27:41

for measuring success.

27:43

Andy Pavin, the big dig spokesperson,

27:46

was always wary of this strategy,

27:48

of putting so much emphasis on a fixed

27:50

number. You're setting yourself on a

27:53

scale that you can't achieve.

27:55

You can't succeed at that. More than that,

27:57

it just wasn't the way to sell this price.

28:00

Nobody has context

28:02

for $7.8 billion and what that means,

28:05

or the difference between $7.8 and $8.8 billion.

28:08

I mean, a billion is a lot. But

28:12

that was my sense was that we

28:14

were always overly afraid of the number,

28:17

of the price, and that wasn't

28:19

the way to present it. Paven

28:21

recalls urging Carasciotas to

28:23

hold public events down in the tunnels,

28:26

do more to showcase the engineering

28:28

and the future benefits, the good stuff.

28:31

And yet, because we were sort

28:33

of singularly focused on

28:36

what is this going to cost,

28:38

that was what we fell into and

28:41

ignored the idea

28:43

that we were getting what could be a once

28:45

in a lifetime opportunity to

28:48

rebuild an aging city.

28:51

So is that the lesson for you from

28:54

the big dig? That you have to find

28:56

a way to keep the focus on the purpose and

28:58

not on the cost when it's happening? Yes.

29:01

Yeah, the only way you maintain support

29:04

for a project

29:05

is to focus on the reason you're doing it.

29:08

We'll

29:08

never know if that kind of PR

29:10

strategy would have made any difference.

29:13

Paven stepped down from his job in 1999. He

29:17

was all done selling the on-time

29:20

on budget line. Matt

29:22

Moynihan, on the other hand, who had

29:24

known Carasciotas for decades and

29:27

counted him as a friend, very much

29:29

understood the game his boss was

29:31

playing. We had to maintain

29:33

the amount of pressure necessary

29:36

to have people working towards that

29:38

$10.8 billion. It

29:41

almost seems to me like that number,

29:43

that cost estimate is like a necessary

29:46

fiction. Like you said, you need a

29:48

hard number to work towards, because if there

29:51

is no cap, then it'll just go up

29:53

and up and up and up. But

29:55

at the same time, there is a kind of unspoken understanding

29:58

that

29:58

we don't really know.

29:59

I mean, how could you now?

30:02

I mean, that was the whole exercise

30:05

of the up-down and keeping people focused

30:07

on that. Could I have gone

30:09

in the first month of the job and said, hey, you know, they're

30:12

telling me it's higher than this. Get

30:15

out of here. You know, that's

30:18

not what I sent you down there for. You know, you can't,

30:21

you've got to manage this thing. And it

30:23

took me a while to buy into

30:25

the number because once you have the number, that's the number.

30:28

It becomes the number, right? You have to get

30:30

it to the point where there's just no other options.

30:32

And that's basically where we were in December of 1999.

30:36

You know, that number was the number.

30:38

Now Moynihan had to bring his

30:41

boss the new number, a big

30:43

number. Had

30:48

Moynihan call me up one

30:50

day. He said, I need your help. James

30:53

Aloisie had worked with the big dig

30:55

as a general counsel. So he understood

30:58

the legal landscape as well as the politics

31:00

of the project. He says, well, we

31:04

need an intervention with

31:06

Jim. And I just need

31:08

people like you to sit with him during

31:12

the intervention so that he gets the seriousness

31:14

of the problem. Moynihan rented

31:16

a suite at the Park Plaza Hotel,

31:19

someplace private, away from the project

31:22

staff. Just a handful of people

31:24

were in the room. Look, Jim,

31:26

you know me. I've done everything I can

31:29

do here. Then he broke

31:31

the news.

31:32

Pat said

31:34

we have some turds in the punch bowl. That

31:36

the project was short, almost $1.4 billion.

31:41

I was shocked. I

31:44

was shocked. I was dismayed. I

31:47

didn't know whether to believe them. And

31:49

you're totally blindsided by this. Yeah.

31:53

Yeah.

31:54

I can remember leaving

31:57

the hotel and basically.

32:00

saying, I think I'm going to

32:02

go get a drink, which I did.

32:05

But Carisiotis did

32:07

not have the luxury of time because

32:11

someone else was starting to ask questions

32:14

about the big, big budget, the

32:16

state's new treasurer.

32:18

The fact is tonight we've

32:20

made history

32:20

in Massachusetts. Shannon

32:25

O'Brien became the first woman

32:27

in Massachusetts history to be elected

32:29

to statewide office on her own ticket.

32:32

We've not only made history, but this is all- And yes,

32:34

state treasurer is not one of the more

32:36

high profile offices, but

32:39

O'Brien would get more than her share

32:41

of attention.

32:42

When I first got in there, it was a little bit

32:44

of trial by fire.

32:49

In December of 1999, the

32:52

same month of that intervention as

32:54

Jim Carisiotis, the state issued

32:57

a new round of bonds to raise

32:59

money. And I'm going to have to sign off on

33:01

this bond. As treasurer, it's her

33:03

name on the signature line.

33:05

And the banker who

33:07

is going to win that contract withdrew

33:11

from the competition to do

33:14

that. I mean, literally it's a competitive bidding process.

33:17

One of the things that bond would pay

33:19

for was the big dig. And

33:21

it seemed like the bankers knew something

33:24

she didn't know about the financial

33:26

health of the project. If they suddenly

33:28

didn't want to buy bonds that were funding

33:31

it.

33:31

Turning back a billion dollar bond

33:33

issuance, that was unusual, really

33:36

unusual. And it says my, you know, spidey

33:38

sense going off, like we have

33:40

to do something here.

33:44

Meanwhile, inside the project, Moynihan

33:47

and Carisiotis were considering their

33:49

options. Reveal the shortfall

33:52

as soon as possible, try to move past

33:54

it or keep it under

33:56

wraps until we have some good news

33:58

to pair it with. for ribbon

34:00

cutting basically. Moynihan

34:03

though felt like it was time to come

34:05

clean. I said,

34:07

look this is what

34:09

happens right? The project like this it

34:12

wasn't like we were you know

34:15

being reckless. You know people

34:17

will understand. People will

34:19

understand. Pretty naive huh?

34:21

Kerasiotis was

34:24

not so naive. He understood

34:26

the promises he had made and the

34:29

enemies he had made. All those

34:31

people he had shouted down over the years

34:33

for daring to contradict him. Now

34:37

there would be a price. I always

34:40

enjoyed the

34:42

Christmas holiday

34:45

and so I always had a 10 or 11 foot

34:48

Christmas tree in my office.

34:50

We had high ceilings

34:52

and sort of the day before we were

34:55

going to part ways for the season

34:57

I would have small

34:59

gathering in the office and that night when

35:02

the gathering

35:04

was winding down and

35:07

I was sitting on the couch my

35:09

arm was around Pat Moynihan and I said

35:12

to him take a look at that tree Pat because

35:14

we're not going to be here next year. And

35:18

so I knew. Everyone

35:27

went home for the year and

35:30

I have to imagine that for a few days

35:32

at least the big dig felt small

35:35

and fleeting when you consider

35:37

that our civilization was about to

35:39

enter a new millennium. What's

35:42

another billion dollars weighed

35:44

against the last thousand years of

35:46

human endeavor? Who would even

35:48

remember all this a thousand years

35:51

from now kind of puts things

35:53

in perspective. On

35:57

December 31st we all won the We

36:00

gathered in crowds and watched at home counting

36:02

down the final seconds. Then,

36:07

we woke up the next day and it was just

36:09

another day. The

36:16

computers had been closed. The

36:18

computer had been closed. The computer

36:21

had been closed. The computer had been

36:23

closed.

36:24

The computer had been closed. It was just another

36:27

day. The computer still

36:29

worked.

36:31

And the big dig still had a billion

36:33

dollar hole in it. So,

36:38

basically, we wanted to get

36:40

to an end result and announce it, but

36:44

we had gremlins in our midst. One

36:48

of those gremlins, for Kerosiotis at least,

36:50

was Shannon O'Brien. She

36:52

saw attacking the project and perhaps

36:54

blowing the thing up, as an opportunity

36:57

for her to make mischief, and she did.

36:59

You know, the first time that I had to interact

37:01

with him was when I had to say, you know, I've

37:04

been hearing that there's some

37:06

potential cost overruns that aren't being disclosed. We ended

37:09

up having, I think, a breakfast at the Langham Hotel.

37:13

In January of 2000, O'Brien

37:17

asked Kerosiotis to meet her for breakfast at

37:20

one of the old classy hotels in

37:22

downtown Boston, the Langham. O'Brien

37:26

and Kerosiotis got a corner table. She ordered a Diet Coke.

37:31

According to O'Brien, everything

37:33

was very cordial.

37:34

But I do remember the exact feeling where

37:36

I said, I just have to raise

37:39

this with you.

37:40

She told him about the rumors, about

37:42

the banker suddenly withdrawing from the bond,

37:45

and then she gave an ultimatum. Give

37:48

us the real numbers.

37:49

And I said to him, I need

37:52

it by next week, and

37:54

if it doesn't happen by

37:55

next week, I'm going to create a little

37:57

crisis. I'm not going to sign off.

38:00

on the general obligation bonds that are due to be

38:02

issued next week. That's going to be a problem

38:05

for a lot of people, but I am willing to

38:07

do that because I don't believe that I'm

38:09

going to be honest if I sign

38:10

off on those bonds.

38:12

So when you leave that meeting with

38:14

her, yeah, where do things stand? Nowhere.

38:18

I basically told her that we

38:20

were certainly willing to work

38:23

with them. She had no

38:25

interest.

38:26

They called my first deputy and

38:28

basically said, I

38:30

was a hysterical woman and could

38:32

they get me to back off? And

38:35

he said I wasn't backing off.

38:37

Carisiotis was running out of time

38:40

and options. The governor had

38:42

to be notified. Bond rating agencies

38:44

had to be notified. And already his

38:47

political enemies were getting wind of

38:49

what was coming. The cat was out of the

38:51

bag. And so Jim

38:53

knew he had to meet the press.

38:56

On February 1st, reporter Tom

38:58

Palmer was summoned to the transportation

39:00

building, along with Laura Brown from

39:02

the Herald. Usually the two

39:04

reporters would compete for a big scoop

39:07

like this. But Carisiotis

39:09

wanted to give them both the same running

39:11

start. As Palmer

39:14

recalls, Pat Moynihan initially

39:16

described to them a cost increase in

39:18

the neighborhood of $1 billion. Then

39:22

he stepped out into the hallway with the other project

39:24

staff. And we all

39:26

were scribbling and getting ready to

39:28

race back to our desks and write

39:31

this. And Pat Moynihan turned

39:33

around and came back and said,

39:35

oh, hell, make it 1.5. I mean,

39:38

it was that, like, we're going to have to admit to that

39:40

someday anyway, so let's do it

39:42

now. The final number was actually 1.4.

39:46

But you get the idea. That's a couple hundred

39:48

million dollars in a project this

39:51

big. The next

39:53

morning on top of the globe's front page

39:56

was Tom Palmer's headline, Big

39:58

Dig Costs. Take a jump.

40:00

of 1.4 billion.

40:02

It was the single greatest cost

40:05

increase in the project's history.

40:09

That

40:12

day, a six-year-long fantasy

40:15

collapsed.

40:16

The Big Dig would not cost $10.8

40:18

billion. The

40:21

number of kerosiotis had been clinging to

40:23

for so long. It would be

40:25

more.

40:26

If you think you are furious about

40:28

the Big Dig, the mess, and the cost

40:31

overruns, you've got company.

40:33

This was a scandal unlike anything

40:35

the project had faced. This project has suffered

40:38

from gross mismanagement. There was a congressional

40:40

hearing. The artery project manners deliberately

40:43

misled. Clinton, secretary of transportation,

40:46

was forced to go over to Capitol Hill and

40:48

testify. John McCain

40:51

even made it a talking point in his presidential

40:53

campaign. Looking for some good news

40:55

on the Big Dig today? Don't look

40:57

in Washington. It was all bad. Soon,

41:01

a federal audit was underway and

41:03

an investigation by the Securities and

41:05

Exchange Commission. Federal officials

41:07

have landed on the project with both feet.

41:10

Every day, there was something else. Pat

41:13

Moynihan told me he only

41:15

spent 13 months running the project,

41:18

but it felt like 13 years. It

41:20

was whether it made front page or

41:22

front page metro. I've

41:24

got a rep for you. I keep saying this is a story

41:27

that has legs. It's not going to go away. That was the

41:29

kind of month or two that we had

41:31

there. This is the

41:33

Big Dig as I remember it growing

41:35

up. A never-ending source

41:38

of outrage. In a Boston Globe poll

41:40

published on Sunday, 48% said

41:43

that Big Dig officials had intentionally

41:45

misled the public about the project's cost. And

41:48

in that moment, the outrage

41:50

found its clear focal point. Jim

41:52

Carasciotis has dug quite a hole for

41:54

himself. Jim Carasciotis,

41:57

the man who had spent a decade, is deeply interested in the

41:59

project. dominating and defending this

42:01

project, lashing out at anyone

42:04

who dared to criticize it. Now

42:07

virtually no one came to defend him.

42:09

And joining me now by satellite from

42:11

Washington DC is Senator John

42:13

Kerry. And all those enemies Carasciotas

42:16

had made along the way, they were ready.

42:19

Their knives sharpened. I mean the fact

42:21

is that the state misled

42:24

federal government. I think it's

42:26

an outrage and I think Mr. Carasciotas

42:28

in particular bears his name. He burned

42:31

the commons.

42:41

This much outrage required

42:43

a sacrifice. And

42:46

so in April of 2000, the

42:48

governor demanded Carasciotas step

42:50

down. After almost 10

42:52

years overseeing the project, he

42:55

was dead. I wonder as

42:58

someone who in your own words

43:00

has fired a good number of

43:02

people and on occasion made example

43:05

of the person you were firing for

43:08

dramatic effect. Did

43:10

you understand what he was doing? Absolutely.

43:13

And I don't blame him. I wasn't happy about it. But

43:17

the story is you're a liar, you're a cheat.

43:20

You're hiding the baloney. You're not being

43:22

honest. You're not being straightforward. And

43:24

when the reality was is that all we were trying

43:26

to do was control the cost of the project

43:29

at every step of the game. The

43:32

right thing to do was to leave. And I

43:34

left. In

43:38

the months after his departure, Carasciotas

43:41

was proven right about one thing.

43:44

Once you open the door for cost increases,

43:47

more would come. His initial

43:49

announcement in February brought the total

43:52

estimate to 12.2 billion. By

43:55

April, it was 13.5. By

43:58

October, 14.

43:59

14.1 and closing

44:02

in on the final price tag of 14.8

44:04

billion. He

44:07

insists to this day that he

44:09

could have held the cost lower if

44:12

only he had been given the chance, but

44:15

his own actions made that impossible.

44:21

Charlie Baker, our last governor, once

44:23

said, quote, if we didn't

44:26

have a Jim Carasciotis to

44:28

manage this project, we'd have

44:30

to invent one. Because

44:32

somebody had to be out front during

44:35

those most treacherous years when

44:37

the problems would be found, when

44:39

the costs would rise, and

44:42

when we'd have very little to show for

44:44

it all. Carasciotis,

44:46

for whatever reason, noble or not,

44:49

was willing to do that.

44:52

And he was willing to force a kind

44:54

of group delusion. If he

44:56

said it was on budget, we'd all

44:58

have to behave as if it was on

45:00

budget.

45:02

He described the game to me as

45:04

holding a beach ball underwater. The

45:07

ball is always looking for a way

45:09

to pop up to the surface, and his

45:11

job was to deny it away,

45:14

to show the contractors and the politicians

45:17

and the public that this was

45:19

the cost. Maybe

45:22

his flaw was that Carasciotis

45:25

sold the on-budget fiction too

45:27

well. He made people believe

45:29

it. Maybe he even came to

45:31

believe it himself. And

45:34

when the beach ball did surface, when

45:36

the fiction was revealed for what it

45:38

was, how else could we

45:40

feel but betrayed?

45:50

Frank Martinez, the foreman on

45:52

the Atlantic Ave contract, felt

45:54

the outrage and resentment reflected

45:57

right at him as he worked those 15

45:59

hour days and 90 hour weeks.

46:02

I mean, we got to the point that we don't even want to wear

46:04

the big dick shirts because people

46:07

was always pointing at us, oh, it's for these guys,

46:10

they're stealing the money. You know what I mean? And

46:12

that's basically one of the things that was

46:14

bothering me a lot because we were just

46:16

there doing the job, you know? People

46:19

don't

46:20

see what we go through to make

46:22

this happen, you know?

46:27

You start thinking about

46:30

how quick nine and a half

46:32

years when, like I

46:35

say, at that time I had

46:37

two little kids. By

46:39

the time I finished, those kids were so big that I

46:42

just, when the hell this happened,

46:44

you know what I mean? You pretty much

46:47

give yourself to that project against

46:49

time. Yeah. Well,

46:51

we answered all my questions.

46:54

So, we're good. Well,

46:56

good. Is there anything that we didn't talk about

46:58

that feels important that you want to say? I

47:01

think we covered just about everything we should, you know?

47:04

Besides, I have to go to work. Yeah,

47:07

I don't want to, sorry. Sorry, I hope I haven't kept you too

47:09

long.

47:17

The question I keep thinking

47:19

about is whether the backlash

47:21

and this narrative around it were

47:24

inevitable. If those cost

47:26

increases had just been announced

47:28

earlier or more gradually, if

47:31

the promises around the budget were somehow

47:33

less forceful, would we,

47:35

the public, have responded any differently?

47:39

Maybe. But

47:40

I'm kind of left thinking that if

47:43

people had known all along

47:45

just how expensive this project was going

47:47

to be, it probably never

47:50

would have happened. There's

47:53

never really a good time

47:55

to be transparent and realistic

47:57

about cost, which I think is

48:00

why so many of our public works projects

48:03

go through the same manic cycle

48:05

from promise to backlash, optimism

48:08

to outrage, because at

48:11

the end of the day you do need

48:13

a number to aim for. Not

48:16

so big that it's scary, not

48:18

so small that it's laughable, something

48:21

everyone can live with and pretend

48:23

is real. Then

48:26

you just hope like hell you're not too

48:28

far off when the bill comes.

48:36

Now the question is, after changing

48:38

horses in mid-dig, can the

48:40

project be...

48:40

But the story is not over, and

48:43

the politics of big-dig funding

48:45

are about to get way weirder.

48:47

And oh yes, who's

48:49

putting the bill for those pesky cost

48:51

overruns?

48:53

That's next time.

49:42

The show is produced by Isabelle

49:45

Hibbard and myself, Ian Koss.

49:48

It's edited by Lacey Roberts. The

49:51

editorial supervisor is Stephanie Leiden,

49:54

with support this episode from Sam

49:56

Darranger. May Lay is

49:58

the project manager. and the executive

50:00

producer is Devin Maverick Robbins.

50:05

To see archival video and learn more about

50:07

the show, head to GBHNews.org.

50:10

And if you want to go deeper into the question

50:13

of how we estimate the cost of big

50:15

projects and why we so often

50:17

get it wrong, I recommend a

50:19

recent book by the scholar Bent

50:21

Pluberg called How Big Things

50:24

Get Done. He's compiled

50:26

incredible data on this subject and

50:29

I found his insights extremely helpful.

50:32

The artwork is by Matt Welch. Our

50:35

closing song is ETA by

50:37

Damon and Naomi. The

50:39

Big Dig is a production of GBH

50:42

News and distributed by

50:44

PRX.

50:53

GBH

51:00

from PRX