As I'm sure most of you have seen in the news since this Tuesday, the idiocy surrounding Boston's "Big Dig" central artery highway project continues, and now has claimed an innocent life and shut down the very tunnel which was built to ease the access to Boston's Logan airport.
The project is probably the biggest single public works overrun in history, initially slated to cost $2.5 billion and ending up at over $14 billion, and G-d know's how much more will be needed to correct all the new construction screwups which pop up almost weekly.
Would YOU risk holding up heavy concrete ceiling panels by drilling UP into the concrete of the tunnel roof and EPOXYING six inch long threaded steel hanger rods into the holes? That's what the media is reporting as all that's holding up those huge concrete "ceiling tiles". I know I wouldn't, and though I'm not a structural engineer I can envision just too many installation variables which could screw up that kind of fastening system and go unoticed until something ripped loose.
SWMBO and I flew back to Boston from a weekend wedding trip to Toronto yesterday morning, two whole days later than planned because of ongoing crummy weather and good old Air Canada's crew shortages. In over 50 years of airline travel all over the world, that delay beat my previous personal record. I was told by a fellow strandee that Air Canada's motto is, "We're not satisfied until you're not satisfied."
Our cab ride home was tortuous because of the shut down tunnel, but I suppose we should be thankful, because if our original travel plans had come off as planned, we could have been going through that very tunnel Monday night at pretty close to the time "the roof fell in", albeit in the opposite direction.
The lawyers must be licking their chops right now, and the taxpayers can look forward to continued fiscal reaming.
Jeff