Progress on Surface Artery Delayed, Plans Far from Ready

BOSTON-While construction of the Central Artery here as part of the Big Dig is on schedule, plans for the 30-acre parcel, which will be opened up when that highway goes underground, will not be ready on time. According to a schedule set by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, preliminary design for the Surface Artery was supposed to be ready this spring with final plans ready by 2003–but city officials have reportedly stated that a design for the space is far from ready.

The Turnpike Authority hired a master planner last year, but that didn’t succeed at speeding up the design process, which has been a very public process. Representative Joseph Sullivan, co-chairman of the legislature’s Commission on Surface Artery Governance and Finance, is quoted as saying, “This is a process that I view continuing over the next decade, in terms of identifying needs and doing the appropriate level of building.” Currently, the commission is working on developing a set of guidelines for the design after months of public meetings in which drawings were presented and suggestions were made.

“There have been weekly meetings about this,” Mark Desroches, spokesperson for state Senator Robert A. Havern III, tells GlobeSt.com. Havern is co-chairman of the commission. “There are a multitude of ideas and they are still in the brainstorming stage.”