Podcast
The Big Dig
There is a cynicism that hangs over the topic of American infrastructure – whether it’s high-speed rail or off-shore wind – it feels like this country can’t build big things anymore. No one project embodies that cynicism quite like what Bostonians call ‘The Big Dig.’ Infamous for its ever-increasing price tag, this massive highway tunneling effort was once ridiculed as the Big Mess, the Big Hole, the Big Pig, the Big Lie. But now, decades later the story looks more complicated. So how did the narrative around this project go so horribly wrong? And what lessons can it offer for the ambitious projects of today?
The nine episode series is produced by GBH News in partnership with PRX.
- History chart
- #155
- Episodes
- 23
- Releases
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 45 min
- On air since
- 2023
- Latest episode
- 3 months ago
Episodes
23 episodes, from the first
Season 1
-
5 min
Introducing: The Big Dig Trailer
Show notes
Can America still do big things? Can we build the ambitious projects we will need to survive climate change and improve our cities? This 9-part series looks for clues in the story of the Big Dig – one of the most notoriously troubled infrastructure projects in American history.
The nine episode series is produced by GBH News.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
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54 min
The Big Dig | 1. We Were Wrong
Episode 1
Show notes
Part 1: There is a strange irony behind the Big Dig: the most expensive highway project ever built in America began with a man who hated highways. This is the story of Fred Salvucci’s journey into activism, during what is perhaps the most transformative anti-highway movement in the nation’s history.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
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52 min
The Big Dig | 2. Unholy Alliance
Episode 2
Show notes
Part 2: In the early 1970s a radical idea took shape: tearing down Boston’s elevated downtown highway, and rebuilding it underground. But making it happen will require a grand bargain between two competing tunnel projects, and between bitter enemies.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
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54 min
The Big Dig | 3. All Politics is Local
Episode 3
Show notes
Part 3: The Big Dig needs federal funding. House Speaker Tip O’Neill is determined to get it; President Ronald Reagan is determined to stop it – setting up a final showdown in one of the great political rivalries of the 20th century.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
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56 min
The Big Dig | 4. The Double Cross
Episode 4
Show notes
Part 4: The project faces an unexpected challenge on the home front: resistance from local environmentalists and residents – the very people the Big Dig was intended to please. Now, they say that Fred Salvucci has lost his way.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
-
54 min
The Big Dig | 5. Hatchet Man vs. the 800 Pound Gorilla
Episode 5
Show notes
Part 5: In 1991, the Big Dig is handed off to a new leader – the brash, aggressive, hatchet-toting Jim Kerasiotes – who makes it clear he plans to shake things up. The one thing he can’t shake is the equally aggressive private company managing the project. Now they have to work together.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
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50 min
The Big Dig | 6. The Up Down Charts
Episode 6
Show notes
Part 6: As work progresses through the 1990s and the tunnels take shape, the true cost of the Big Dig remains unknown to the public, until a series of revelations pulls down the curtain and shakes confidence in the whole project.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
-
57 min
The Big Dig | 7. The Turnpike Revolt
Episode 7
Show notes
Part 7: By the year 2000, the Big Dig has passed through many hands, but in its final years a power struggle spills into public view – over who will determine the project’s fate, and who will take responsibility for its mistakes.
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
-
57 min
The Big Dig | 8. I Want Justice for What Happened
Episode 8
Show notes
Part 8: Just as the project turns the corner towards completion, its entire legacy becomes clouded. The tunnels are leaking, concrete suppliers are being arrested, and everyday drivers are forced to wonder: are these tunnels safe?
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
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38 min
The Big Dig | 9. Hearts and Minds
Episode 9
Show notes
Part 9: It’s been fifty years since the Big Dig was first conceived, thirty years since construction began, more than a dozen years since it was completed – and the final twist is: the project has largely delivered on its promises. How do we reconcile that reality with the scandal and outrage we’ve heard so much about?
Credits:
Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss
Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins
Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss
Editor: Lacy Roberts
Editorial Advisor: Stephanie Leydon
Fact Checker: Lisa Wardle
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
-
3 min
BONUS: A note from the team Bonus
Show notes
Just dropping in to share some news about the show, and what's coming next.
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7 min
Highway Teardown Tour | Enter Here
Episode 10
Show notes
Every American city is divided by crumbling old highways. Every city is trying to figure out what to do with them. But even if the problems with these structures are obvious, the solutions are not – often they are contentious. Welcome to The Big Dig Highway Teardown Tour.
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52 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 1. New York, NY
Episode 11
Show notes
What to do with the BQE? It’s a one of a kind highway in desperate need of repair, but no one can agree how to fix it.
Guests: Polly Trottenberg, Lara Birnback, Stephen Nessen
Recorded live at WNYC’s Greenspace.
Archival audio courtesy of Municipal Archives, City of New York.
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48 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 2. Syracuse, NY
Episode 12
Show notes
Is it possible to re-write the Interstate map and send highways around cities instead of through them? Syracuse, NY is doing just that.
Guests: Marie Therese Dominguez, Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, Joe Driscoll
Recorded live in partnership with WRVO and the Syracuse Museum of Science and Technology.
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41 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 3. Rochester, NY
Episode 13
Show notes
Once the highway is gone, can the divisions these structures created actually be healed? Can the people on either side become neighbors again? Rochester, NY is trying to answer that question.
Guests: Erik Frisch, Brian Sharp, Shawn Dunwoody, Suzanne Mayer
Recorded live at the WXXI studios in Rochester, NY.
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33 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 4. Austin, TX
Episode 14
Show notes
How did the Austin City Council find themselves locked in a ‘death match’ over what to do about Interstate 35? Two councilors and two journalists talk through the fraught politics of so-called highway caps.
Guests: Megan Kimble, Nathan Bernier, José “Chito” Vela, Mike Siegel
Recorded live at the KUT Festival in Austin, TX.
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35 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 5. Seattle, WA
Episode 15
Show notes
There is exactly one other American city crazy enough to attempt anything like what Boston did with The Big Dig. That city is Seattle, and they are not done tearing down highways.
Guests: Joshua McNichols, Greg Nickels, Cayce James, José Manuel Vasquez
Recorded live with KUOW at the Seattle Public Library.
Archival audio courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives
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45 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 6. Portland, OR
Episode 16
Show notes
The anti-highway movement, like any movement, has always been a coalition. Different people with different backgrounds and different interests finding a common cause. But sometimes the coalition cracks.
Guests: Lillian Karabaic, Shawn Granton, Sharon Gary-Smith, Chris Smith
Recorded live with Oregon Public Broadcasting at Literary Arts in East Portland.
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31 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 7. Louisville, KY
Episode 17
Show notes
In the stories we tell about public works, there is a constant bias towards the projects that actually happened, but it’s the apparently ‘failed’ projects that can often teach us the most.
Guests: Marcus Green, Tyler Allen, Ken Herndon
Recorded live with LPM at the LPM Performance Studio.
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43 min
Highway Teardown Tour | 8. Baltimore, MD
Episode 18
Show notes
This episode is about a very different kind of teardown – one that came suddenly, tragically, and without warning. But within this utterly unique story there are some universal questions about how we build for the present and the future.
Guests: Johnny Olszewski, Samantha Biddle, Wambui Kamau, Arkia Wade, Klaus Philipsen
Recorded live with WYPR at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.
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