Dig This.

Everyone has seen the gargantuan billboards; not noticing them is impossible. "The Big Dig--Worth Its Wait," they proclaim to the Boston community, trying to comfort the drivers stuck in never-ending traffic, wondering which new road they'll have to take this time. But the construction that has already been going on for years still has a ways to go, and the garish billboards may not placate the angry driver who can't help but wonder: "What the hell is this `Big Dig' anyway?"

For those who seldom manage the trip from Cambridge to Boston, the idea of the Big Dig may be as foreign as Roxbury and Southie. However, most Bostonians know and abhor the constant reality that driving anywhere in the city means--fighting insufferable traffic, endless construction and inevitable road rage. According to many of these frustrated drivers, the root of the chaos is the Central Artery, an elevated, rust-coated hunk of steel that carries crawling traffic north to south through the middle of Boston.

When the Artery opened in 1959, it carried 75,000 vehicles a day. Now, however, it overflows with 190,000 vehicles. Deemed one of the most congested highways in the U.S., the Artery boasts 10 hours of crawling traffic daily, an accident rate four times the national average and an estimated annual cost to motorists of over $5 million due to wasted fuel and wasted time. The current highway system also cuts off the North End and the waterfront from downtown Boston, destroying the economy of these neglected neighborhoods. If nothing were done to change the current problems, by the year 2010, traffic would be jammed in stop-and-go misery for 1 to 16 hours a day.

There certainly seem to be some large holes in the ground, some big cranes on the skyline and a new way to get onto the South-East Expressway every other day. What, one may ask, are all those pile drivers, wrecking balls and backhoes doing for the common good? Get ready, because the Artery will soon be blasted up and replaced by some pretty fountains, park benches and begonias. In 1991, the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, affectionately (or not so affectionately) known as The Big Dig, was started to combat ferocious traffic problems in the Boston area. The plan called for Boston's exposed artery--its largest eyesore--to be buried. The Artery's traffic will be carried instead along a 10-lane underground expressway. Anyone living downtown better be ready to feel safe above hollow ground: most of the city's notoriously sludgy earth will be infiltrated by miles of tunnels traversed daily by as many as 245,000 vehicles.

This network of tunnels will merge and surface near the Fleet Center, crossing the Charles River in an elegant 14-lane, cable-stayed bridge. The bridge will be the widest in the world and, in addition, the first asymmetrical bridge ever built. In its design, Swiss architects tried to evoke the Bunker Hill Monument (though some might question choosing the ugliest monument in Boston to welcome people to the city).

Putting these two highway improvements in the ground of a city like Boston amounts to one of the largest and most difficult infrastructure projects ever undertaken in the country. Though facts and figures may be fascinating to the future engineers and city planners among us, not everyone wants to know the force exerted by each 24-ton steel beam in the hole at South Station. The really interesting facts surface at the site; they come from people wearing hard hats who spend hours at a time 140 feet underground. And for the guy (or girl) who still hasn't given up a childhood passion for cranes and big drills, on-site glimpses of the massive holes in Boston can't be matched.

The everyday danger of the dig sites becomes apparent when talking to construction workers. As one worker answered a question about the religious tags hanging from his hardhat, "I just figure you need every added blessing you can get. We're dealing with life and death every second down there." When asked whether anything dangerous occurs at his site, another construction worker refuses to comment, admitting, "I can't talk about it. That's for the PR guys at the office to talk about. Look for yourself then you can decide whether it's dangerous or not." Glancing down the 100-foot deep shaft gives a pretty good idea of what he's talking about.

Construction workers evidently find the hazards of their job worth the risk: some moved their entire families to Boston for the project. One pile-driver supervisor, Curly, licked a lime lollipop on his break and talked about bringing his family here from Ohio and buying a house. One of the contractors noted that the workers "know they're going to be here awhile, so they're starting to settle down."

The job is in actuality less dangerous than it may seem. According to Darren Campenelli, miner and electrical engineer, there has only been one death during the entire five years of construction work. "They estimate a man every mile in these kind of jobs," Campenelli proudly pointed out, "but we've done pretty well here since the only death was above ground and the guy was hit by a pile driver."

Big Dig work runs around the clock in three shifts: one from 1 a.m. to 3 p.m., one from 3 p.m. to midnight and another red-eye from midnight to 7 a.m. "It's doesn't matter if it's dark outside," Curly points out, "it's dark down there anyway". Compensation is just for this sunless travail. According to some workers at the South Station tunnel site, "We get paid $90,000 a year and that's probably a hell of a lot more than you'll get paid out of Harvard." The engineer working at the hole next door to the bus station talks about his contract, which began 16 months ago. "I work on structure here, and the reason this project is taking longer than anything else like it is because of all the steel supports that have to be inserted as we dig the tunnels. Without them, all these buildings would fall into the hole," he says, gesturing to the financial institution offices dwarfing his massive machinery. He then points to where he began work 16 months before, about 20 feet away. "My contract started there and ends up there," he points to a spot nearby. "I estimate we'll get there in a year and a half, two years."

The Big Dig has already been under construction since 1991 and those involved expect it to continue until 2004. As of September, 98 percent of the design has been completed but only 43 percent of the construction. The construction was originally projected to be finished by 1998, then 2000, and then 2002. The current estimate is 2004, but many Bostonians agree that they'll be dealing with the Dig for at least another 10 years. The entire cost of this monstrous public works project--the biggest engineering feat since the Panama Canal--is $10.8 billion; 70 percent being funded by the generous U.S. government after years of haggling and 30 percent by exploited Massachusetts tax payers watching the prices of highway tolls skyrocket over the years.

Of course, the reason the Dig is in the news so much is that it's a pain in the ass. Bostonians are confused about why the dig is taking so long and wonder why their apartments now look out into giant cement mausoleums. One possible explanation for the overwhelming length of this project is generous snack breaks for the workers. Granted these guys work hard, but do $27,000 a month of taxpayers money need to be spent on little Debbie snack cakes? Another big fund-sucker is the fish initiative that concerned many local environmentalists. To ensure the safety of the Greater Boston fish population, workers use machines that emit sound waves to drive those crazy mating lobsters deeper into the sea.

To most citizens, the Big Dig has been an ongoing annoyance for half a lifetime. Even the most patient resident has become exasperated as streets have disappeared and jackhammers have kept their sweet music going throughout the night. However, the brobdignadgian(!) scale of the operation deserves some respect from the most avid Dig-hater. Aside from the occasional 17th century bowling ball, most of what gets dug up is--that's right--dirt, enough to fill Foxboro Stadium to the rim 13 times. Some of it is being used to cap the various dumps around Boston, including one in Boston Harbor on Spectacle Island (where a park will be built on top of the new man-made dirt heap). The amount of dredged-up earth, if put in dump trucks, would stretch all the way to Brazil. The concrete used could make a sidewalk to San Francisco and back three times.

This daunting size, combined with Boston's renowned construction company affiliations with the mob, means that nobody quite knows when the madness will end. Nevertheless, someone is rolling around in a bed of $10.8 billion while the rest of the city struggles to maneuver their cars around pits of dirt, through leaky tunnels and over broken bridges.