Strategic Project Management on Boston's Big Dig

This paper analyzes the key success factors for completion of the Boston Big Dig project, including scope, time, cost, and quality. It discusses the failures and challenges faced during the project and provides recommendations for improvement.

Running head: STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT ON BOSTON’S BIG DIG
STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT ON BOSTON’S BIG DIG
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT ON BOSTON’S BIG DIG
Executive Summary
The main aim of this paper is to analyze the key success factors for completion of a
project. The evaluation of this factor is done with the example of Boston Big Dig project. The
scope, Quality and time of the project is seen to determine the failure and success of the
project. The relevancy of these factors in determining the Boston Big Dig project failure is
taken into account. The paper is concluded that lack of different types of management result
in failure of the project.

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STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT ON BOSTON’S BIG DIG
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Background of the company and the project case that is selected:........................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Scope......................................................................................................................................3
The time.................................................................................................................................4
Cost........................................................................................................................................4
Quality:...................................................................................................................................4
Identification and justification of the criteria.............................................................................5
Analysis of the case based on the criteria chosen......................................................................6
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................8
Recommendation:......................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
Background of the company and the project case that is selected:
The Central artery or Tunnel Project was one of the largest and most challenging
highway projects in the history of United States. The other name for the project was given as
The Big Dig. The megaproject was done in Boston to reroute the Central Artery of Interstate
93 which is the chief highway that goes through the heart of the city. The project was
initiated to reduce the traffic congestion in the tangled streets of the Boston. Eventually an
expressway was constructed between the downtown area and the waterfront which was
proposed by the commissioner of public works to avoid the congestion. The plan failed to
decrease the traffic and increased congestion on the central artery. 16 hours of wastage time
were predicted by 2010 for traffic jams in Boston by that time. The project enhanced the local
environment by building a framework in Massachusetts and New England. The massive road
infrastructure project was undertaken by Massachusetts turnpike authority which was started
in 1991 (Kassens-Noor 2019). The estimated cost after the completion of the project was
$14.8bn. Though the actual cost was disclosed to public in July 2012 which was estimated
more than $24bn by the department of transportation. The state is currently paying $100m
annually in debt service that will be continued till 2038 (Edwards and Kaeding 2015).
Discussion
This strategic project management report describes and discusses about the scope, the
time consumed, cost and quality of the Big Dig Project in Boston.
Scope
Replaces the 6 lane long elevated highway with the new 10 lane and 8 lane
underground expressway. The new fourteen lane crossing with two bridges over St. Charles
River has been constructed to reduce the congestion. The Old and abolished highways are

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used as parks and for other structural developments. The project has an extension of I-
90(Pinto and Garvey 2016) which is a tunnel beneath South Boston and the Boston Harbor.
The first link is the Ted Williams Tunnel under the harbor.
The time
The planning of the project began in 1982; the environmental impact studies were
started on 1983. After years of obstacles created by the president Ronald Reagan, the US
Congress abolished the denial and initiated the project. The projected finally started on 1991
and ended on the year 2007. The congress approved the funding and scope of project on 1987
and the business relocation process begins. On 1990 the funding of $755 was allocated by the
Congress for the project (Edwards 2015). The construction began from the William tunnel to
South Boston haul road. The tube sections for ted William are placed and connected on 1993
and then the Charles River Bridge was designed and entered the peak construction years
which was during 1995 to 2000. On 2001 the overall construction was almost complete. On
2007 after the long 25 years of halt the project finally received the green light and was made
available to the citizens.
Cost
The total cost of construction was $9,120 million, the force accounts were $596
million, Right of way settlements were $572 million and the design was charged for $996
Million, project management charged $1962 million, insurances of $572 million and
Contingency of $258 million (Greiman 2013). The Massachusetts state official announced
after 2007 that total of 24 billion was invested on the project.
Quality:
Although the big dig project was created for the comfort of the citizens to avoid the
daily congestion but it did not prove to be a quality enough construction. The raw materials

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used for building the tunnels and the roads were substandard and of poor quality. The use of
these materials lead to fast cracks and leaks in the ceilings caused a fatal accident on 2006
(Cohen 2013). On 2006 a fatal accident was caused as the ceiling of a tunnel collapsed which
resulted in the death of a person and many people got injured. The whole project lagged of
quality.
Identification and justification of the criteria
A successful construction project is very much important for the country’s social and
economic development and if it fails to do the same can result in big loss of life and revenue.
Big Dig was one of the most expensive projects for highway in U.S, which was created to get
a control over the highly congested traffic in Boston. The four area which are very essential
to ensure that the project will not be a failure can include a proper planning for the project, an
efficient project management team, Site management team and consignment of various
political parties(Nicholas and Steyn 2017). Fulfillment of this factor will help in resulting a
successful construction project. Proper planning of different phases is very important in
successful project completion and time and cost efficient way. To reduce the time for the
construction a Fast track design was undertaken for building the Big Dig design
(Marcantuono et al., 2015). This method includes dividing the project into subsequent parts
by which work on the later part can be done before the completion of the earlier part. This
process is helpful for predicting the outcome of the earlier section before it is completed.
There are three major parts of the construction of the highway that are I-93, I-90 and I-90/I-
93 (mass.gov 2019). By the use of stainless steel the height of the tilted area was reduced by
eliminating the trim from the wall and ceiling reduce the cost of the project. To support the
administration of the project contract the Big Dig project also incorporated various
procedures. The cost management for the project was a very important aspect for which an
experienced project management team is needed. The contingency fund that was provided

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was used with proper planning and saving for the remaining work in future for the intended
purpose. The project also have a financial plan which means the original expenditure is
compared with the expenditure estimated, it help in determining that the resources that are
available will be enough to complete the project. A design team with quality experience is
also an important factor for the success of a construction project because without proper
knowledge flaws can result in severe damage. A center for operation control was
incorporated as a part of Big Dig to keep a check over the traffic by the use of ITS device,
which make it a smart highway (mass.gov 2019). A proper site management team is also
needed for the selection of proper area for the implementation of the project because weather,
population can result in variation of the expected outcome of the project (Mccollum 2015).
There are some political issues, which can affect the project. Therefore, there is a need of
consignment of all the parties before the project is started because a big project requires
different types of funding which includes state funding, federal funding, and if any other
funding that are required in future purpose.
Analysis of the case based on the criteria chosen
The first criteria chosen for successful project management is proper planning for the
project. Big Dig construction is divided into two subparts. The first component is a highway,
which is underground under the existing road, and the other is extension of I-90 from the
south toward the Boston downtown (mass.gov 2019). The Big Dig as planned in such a way
that will reduce the traffic and congestion problem and also provide better mobility to Boston
town which is beneficial to the population of the town(Paul and Spurr 2016). To keep a
check on the highly congested traffic, ITS device is used which help in keeping track on the
traffic (Ghena et al., 2014). Thus, the construction is able to reach the need of the
community. However, the project failed to do so because there is a huge escalation is cost. It
was estimated to be $2.56 billion and it raise to $7.74 billion in the year of 1992 which

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further increase to $10.4 billion in the year 1994, which finally becomes $14.8 billion in the
year of 2007 (Virine and Trumper 2016). Therefore, the financial plan for Big Dig project
was not very efficient (Biesenthal et al., 2018). The site selection of Big Dig project was not
efficient because Boston is a busy city with a huge population. The problems that arise due to
this are rescheduling the milestone set for the project. An era-site that was 150 year old,
which is discovered after the project, was undertaken required many approvals from the
preservation and historical organizations, which result rescheduling (Greiman, 2013). The
problems related to cost and scheduling also arose due to wrong cost estimation, the
important decision are delayed, mitigation cost, some of the technical issues that are
unexpected. The Fast track design is undertaken which gives a benefit to cost ratio of 1:3 and
thus it prove to be very cost efficient method (Nicholas and Steyn 2017). The risk
management strategies that are ensured by the project management team were not good. The
project uses materials, which are substandard, and the way of execution was not proper which
result in collapsing of the ceiling. Parson’s Brinkerhoff permitted the project with many
flaws, incomplete design, and numerous errors, which result in cost overrun, and collapsing
of building as the philosophy undertaken is to complete the work and the question arises are
ignored. Due to inadequate knowledge of the designers the safety issues arises. Collapsing of
rooftop, which was fatal take place due to the use of poor and creepy epoxy anchor. The
epoxy that is used to build the design get cracked with increasing load that established the
fact that the materials used are not of good quality. In the year of 2007, July the Big Dig
construction gets dissolved (Boateng, Chen and Ogunlana 2015). There is a big involvement
of the political parties in the construction. There are accusations that there is a lot of
corruption and financial misuse by the political parties which result in bad quality materials
and cost overruns and rescheduling. There are several political constraints in the project and

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many the state and federal funding delays. This construction meet the community need but on
a temporary basis.
Conclusion:
The project management report concludes that the Big Dig project of Boston or
the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T) was built to avoid the congestion on the roads of
the Boston. The project was built to smoothen the traffic situations of Boston. The project
was very costly and was opposed by the president. The congress of United States came to
action and initiated the advancement of the project. The project almost took 25 years from the
time of approval to the time it got finished. The project estimated almost $24 billion to get
complete. Although the project was a piece of hurry and shows the administration’s fault and
how they neglected and compromised the quality of raw materials (Flyvbjerg 2014). The
project saw the green signal at 2006 and then it met with a severe accident on 2007. The
ceiling collapsed and one person died with many casualties. The use of bad quality of raw
materials was the very vital reason of the malfunction. Thus the success of the project varies
as the project was successful enough to decrease the congestion on the roads but the quality
of the project did not prove to be good enough.
Recommendation:
The report has mentioned all the gaps that are needed to be filled to avoid more
accidents. The lighting system of the whole tunnel in the project is needed to be replaced by
the LED fixtures. The 110lb light fixtures are outdated and are energy consuming. Although
the replacement project has been initiated and will cost $203million. The maintenance fund

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will be used to complete the project. This can hamper the traffic movement for the next three
years, the expected deadline for the work.
References
Biesenthal, C., Clegg, S., Mahalingam, A. and Sankaran, S., 2018. Applying institutional
theories to managing megaprojects. International Journal of Project Management, 36(1),
pp.43-54.
Boateng, P., Chen, Z. and Ogunlana, S.O., 2015. An Analytical Network Process model for
risks prioritisation in megaprojects. International Journal of Project Management, 33(8),
pp.1795-1811.
Cohen, S., 2013. “From the Big Dig to the Big Gig”: Live Music, Urban Regeneration, and
Social Change in the European Capital of Culture 2008. In Musical Performance and the
Changing City (pp. 41-65). Routledge.
Edwards, C. 2015. Federal government cost overruns.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2014). What you should know about megaprojects and why: An
overview. Project management journal, 45(2), 6-19.
Ghena, B., Beyer, W., Hillaker, A., Pevarnek, J. and Halderman, J.A., 2014. Green lights
forever: Analyzing the security of traffic infrastructure. In 8th {USENIX} Workshop on
Offensive Technologies ({WOOT} 14).
Greiman, V.A., 2013. Megaproject management: Lessons on risk and project management
from the Big Dig. John Wiley & Sons.

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Kassens-Noor, E., 2019. Transportation planning and policy in the pursuit of mega-events:
Boston's 2024 Olympic bid. Transport Policy, 74, pp.239-245.
Marcantuono, R., Gutsche, J., Burke‐Julien, M., Anwaruddin, S., Augoustides, J.G., Jones,
D., Mangino–Blanchard, L., Hoke, N., Houseman, S., Li, R. and Patel, P., 2015. Rationale,
development, implementation, and initial results of a fast track protocol for transfemoral
transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Catheterization and Cardiovascular
Interventions, 85(4), pp.648-654.
mass.gov, 2019. The Big Dig: project background. [online] mass.gov. Available at:
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/the-big-dig-project-background [Accessed 2 Apr. 2019].
Mccollum, J.K., 2015. The importance of project management software and systems
engineering in mega projects. Journal of Information Systems & Operations
Management, 9(2), pp.1-8.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Routledge.
Paul, A.A.J. and Spurr, S., 2016. Property value impacts of rapid transit accessibility in
Boston (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Pinto, C.A. and Garvey, P.R., 2016. Advanced risk analysis in engineering enterprise
systems. CRC Press.
Virine, L. and Trumper, M., 2016. ProjectThink: why good managers make poor project
choices. Routledge

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