Boston's Big Dig: The $14 Billion Secret Plan (Part 1 of 3)

Boston attempted to bury its most congested highway in a massive engineering project. Learn how the Big Dig began as a plan to replace an elevated highway with tunnels. This first part covers the technical challenges of excavating under a living city and the early signs of a massive budget cover-up. New stories every Tuesday and Friday. Want more on why big projects go wrong? Listen to "How Big Things Get Done" by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, free with an Audible trial: https://link.amazon/B02A9dSa8 Support the channel on Patreon:   / toofartoreturn   As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Part 1 of 3: "The Big Dig" Watch the full series:    • The Big Dig: Full Documentary Series   Next: Part 2, Boston's Big Dig: 700 Leaks They Kept Secret (Part 2 of 3) -    • Boston's Big Dig: 700 Leaks They Kept Secr...   CHAPTERS 0:00 The Most Hated Highway in America 0:51 The Green Monster of Boston 3:49 A Plan to Bury the Artery 7:04 Engineering Under the City 11:01 The Budget Begins to Spiral 13:25 The Fourteen Billion Dollar Secret HOW THIS VIDEO WAS MADE Researched and written from the sources listed below. Narration uses a synthetic text-to-speech voice. Some scenes are AI-generated reconstructions made for illustration; they are not historical photographs or footage. Archive photographs are credited below. SOURCES "Ceiling Collapse in the Interstate 90 Connector Tunnel, Boston, Massachusetts, July 10, 2006 (Highway Accident Report NTSB/HAR-07/02)" by National Transportation Safety Board, published by NTSB in 2007. Link: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/P... "Boston's Big Dig Project: A Cautionary Tale", published by Bridgewater Review, vol. 27, no. 1. "The Big Dig: project background", published by Mass.gov (Commonwealth of Massachusetts). Link: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/the... "Big Dig" by Roland Martin, published by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Link: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Big-Dig "Completing the 'Big Dig': Managing the Final Stages of Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project", published by The National Academies Press. Link: https://www.nationalacademies.org/rea... "Big Dig", published by Wikipedia. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig IMAGE CREDITS Photo: Thomas J. O'Halloran, 1957, U.S. News and World Report Collection, Library of Congress, public domain (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Boston Redevelopment Authority, City of Boston Archives, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Postcard, 1950s, unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Matthias Nonnenmacher, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Ernst Halberstadt, 1973, Project DOCUMERICA (EPA), Boston Public Library, public domain (cropped, brightened) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Arnold Reinhold, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped, retouched) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Cambridge Historical Commission, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped, resized) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: MassDEP, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr (colour-corrected, cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Ian Howard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Arnold Reinhold, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: MassDEP, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr (colour-corrected, cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Niranjan Arminius, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped, retouched) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: MassDEP, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr (colour-corrected, cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: Doc Searls, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Photo: formulanone, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) / cropped to 16:9 Archive images are shown with slow pan and zoom. Licenses: CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... | CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... | CC BY-SA 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... | CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... #documentary #history #truestory