I-90 tunnel complete

Boston commuters can now enjoy a quick and smooth trip to Logan Airport, after last weekend’s official opening of the $6.5-billion I-90 Connection.

The tunnel, which connects the Massachusetts Turnpike by South Station to the Ted Williams Tunnel and Logan Airport, completes the last portion of I-90, which now stretches 3,400 miles from Seattle to Boston. The tunnel will dramatically reduce traffic on the Central Artery, said Tunnel Project Chairman Matthew Amorello.

State and city officials as well as project laborers attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday, at the entrance to the tunnel, which is expected to reduce travel time from Copley Square to Logan Airport from 30 to 40 minutes to five to eight minutes.

‘This is a great day for the residents of Boston and of the region,’ Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said at the ceremony.

Menino emphasized the significance of the project’s completion as a contribution to a ‘new Boston,’ serving as a ‘national model’ for its modern transportation, but still maintaining its ‘old world charm.’

‘Our infrastructure will serve as a good foundation for the economic development,’ he said.

U.S. Representative Edward Markey offered his congratulations to laborers and city officials at the ceremony, in addition to warming the crowd with some Bostonian humor.

‘Now every single New Yorker who wants to go North will have to go through the Ted Williams tunnel!’ Markey shouted to the people.

Markey also compared the completed tunnel to the Panama Canal, but assured the crowd of orange-vested ‘hard hat heroes,’ ‘we will never, never, never give this tunnel back!’

He then suggested a new motto for the project, a take off from the one belonging to the Canal, ‘the land divided, the city united.’

Following the lively Markey, U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch had more somber congratulatory words, requesting a moment of silence to remember the three laborers who lost their lives while working on the project.

Governor Mitt Romney, Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas M. Finneran, Robert Beal, of the Artery Business Committee, and Joseph Nigro, of the Boston Building and Trades Council, also spoke at the ceremony. They all acknowledged the complexity of the project, some citing it as the most technologically challenging transportation system in the country.

With the most advanced traffic and incident response system in the nation, along with its seven-building ventilation system, the tunnel broke new ground in several areas.

Contract administrator for the Fort Point Channel Crossing Kelly Lavelle said the project was well worth its high price tag.

‘A lot of people think they got ripped off but in actuality they didn’t,’ she said.

According to Lavelle, the new transportation system will provide more park space, making Boston neighborhoods ‘more aesthetically pleasing,’ a benefit she believes residents will appreciate.

Officials also claim the tunnel will help reduce carbon monoxide emissions and improve Boston air quality. The completed highway project will reportedly drop carbon monoxide levels 12 percent throughout the city, by keeping traffic moving.

While officials expect the entire project to be complete by December 2004, Boston residents have more milestones to look forward to in the coming months.

Next month, Northbound traffic on the underground Central Artery is expected to begin, which will also put to use the 10-lane Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge Romney referred to as ‘sculpture.’

Construction on the Big Dig began in 1991 and is currently 86 percent complete.