The Big Dig

Group website

By
Hayden Crocker
Kirstin Keith
Gianna Tegos

      
     When deciding which project to do for history fair many ideas were brought to
the table, although the majority were not suitable. We wanted something close by
and highly debated. We then came up with the idea of Boston’s Big Dig. We visit
Boston quite often, and it seemed like a suitable topic. This topic is extremely
interesting to us, and we wanted to find out more about it. After conducting a little
research we concluded that we would do our project on it.

     We spent a great deal of time researching Boston’s Big Dig, otherwise known
as the Central Artery Project. First of all, we had plenty of background
knowledge. We looked at reliable websites to find out more about our topic. We
always made sure the source was accurate. We attempted to contact many
people involved with the Big Dig, and were lucky enough to find two
knowledgeable people. We interviewed a man named John Ramano from
Massachusetts Department of Transportation. He grew up in the Boston area
and knew all about it from work. We also interviewed a woman, Nicole Gelinas
who wrote a great article in the City Journal on Boston’s Big Dig. We used this
article for a lot of information while researching our topic. The most time spent on
this project was collecting valuable information.

       For our project we chose a website. We did this for a few different reasons.
A website is more interactive with the viewer. You can choose different pages to
go to, and explore Boston’s Big Dig on our website with just the click of a button.
We have extreme experience with technology and websites. We thought making
a website was a good idea because we knew what we were doing, a lot more
than we would know doing different kinds of projects.

The theme of the National History Day fair this year is Debate and
Diplomacy. There are many ways that our topic relates to it. One way it relates is
the money. There was a large debate over the cost of the Central Artery Project.
It was the most expensive national highway project in the history of the United
States. It was estimated to cost about $2.8 billion, but ended up costing over
$14.7 billion. Another debated topic is the safety of the tunnels. A thirty eight
year-old woman died when a tunnel collapsed on her while she was driving. The
tunnels needed to be safe because many people go through them daily. The
length of time was also debated. It was estimated to last years shorter than it
ended up going for. Even today it is a debatable topic.