Mud flings up from my tires, making a brown stain on the back of my shirt. My shoes are caked in rocks and dirt. The bottoms of my pants have been saturated by rainwater. After dodging puddles and mud holes, I finally arrive at the door of my apartment. To my dismay, I have a flat tire on my bike – the second in less than a week.
I haven’t been mountain biking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. No, I’ve just navigated my way home from the College of Communication in a rainstorm to my South Campus apartment. My journey through mud, 5-inch-deep puddles and temporary metal slates, flattened my flat tires while I was biking down Commonwealth Avenue.
I don’t mean to complain, but I have a word of caution to Boston University. While I realize the final outcome will ultimately be beneficial to the BU community, resulting in wider sidewalks lined with trees – I can’t help but be a bit skeptical at this juncture.
During my freshman year of high school, the two towns that fund my regional school district voted to add on to and renovate our high school. No sooner had the vote been passed and the construction company been chosen, sections of the school were torn down before our eyes. Classes were moved repeatedly, and dump trunks barreled down our school driveway. Classes were interrupted by fire drills, jackhammers and air quality control tests.
I realize that Commonwealth Avenue construction doesn’t affect my classroom experience. But I cannot help thinking back to my high school days. Everyday I am diverted in a different direction having to navigate my way to class through police officers, Jersey barriers and traffic cones.
Five years later, my high school is millions of dollars over budget, and construction still hasn’t been complete. The project has run three years past its projected completion. So, as I walk to the George Sherman Union and see little or no work occurring in certain sections of the construction site, I shudder with flashbacks of my high school construction experience. I don’t want to blast the administration or McCourt, the construction company in charge, but I just have grown weary of construction and remain skeptical of completion dates.
I worry that I’ll be dodging the same mud pits and traffic cones my senior year. My high school promised to complete its project in my senior year, and that was three years ago. If the same thing happens here, it would be a shame. I commend the administration for setting up a website so we can monitor progress on a daily basis – it just seems as if things could be moving faster. They could have started over the summer so more work would have been completed already. But there is no use in complaining about the past, they need to ensure the future.
I’ve seen backhoes in the same place for days and I issue a word of warning. My high school addition / renovation process can, without a doubt, be labeled as a management and fiscal failure.
BU needs to ensure it will properly oversee the project. Even though it is a publicly funded work site and the university has no control over the finances, it can still oversee those in charge – ensuring the project is progressing as planned.
The problem with publicly funded projects, as I unfortunately learned in high school, is that the school cannot withhold funds if it feels the project is not being completed up to par. However, since the renovation project is geared in part to beautify the BU campus, administrators should use any influence they can to ensure this project does not fall by the wayside.
Ultimately, my town fired the original construction company for faulty work and lack of progress, the latter of which seems to be occurring on the area of Boston we call our Charles River Campus. The university needs to ensure that McCourt adheres to deadlines.
Also, the temporary walking zones are too small for pedestrians, let alone trying to navigate them on a bike, as I learned while riding through torn up sections of sidewalk because bikers can no longer fit on the sidewalk on Commonwealth Avenue.
I’m anxious to see the final product. On paper, it looks beautiful – but so do a lot of things. I guess my high school experience has jaded my perception a bit. But I simply speak on the side of caution to the administration. Ensure the construction company is doing all they can, as fast as they can, so that the idea on paper will be a reality — sooner rather than later.
Chris Conte, a sophomore in the College of General Studies, is a City News assignment
editor for The Daily Free Press.