Boston's Big Dig Delayed Because of Programmers?

dalewj writes "This article in the Boston Globe explains that Boston's Big Dig will be ready to open on time, if the software developers and cable layers can get their act together." Turns out honeywell's software isn't quite ready.

Comments

It's supposed to end?

[IPFreely]

I thought the Big Dig was supposed to go on forever.

Re:It's supposed to end?

[connorbd]

The original plan was for several roads around it; someone mentioned 128, but there was also I-695 that was supposed to just skirt downtown. It was never built because it would have utterly destroyed a number of poor but vital neighborhoods, and because the inhabitants of those neighborhoods no longer trusted the Mass Highway Dept to take care of their interests (i.e. relocation, etc); there had been an awful lot of bad faith building the Mass Pike and the (old, elevated) Central Artery. Check out www.bostonroads.com for the gory details.

Boston's highway system (with the exception of the Pike, which has its own connected but separate history) was designed around I-95 and the Inner Belt, but two major segments of I-95 (Canton to the South End and Revere to Peabody) were never built (the segment that was built is now I-93 downtown and Route 1 north of Boston), and the entire system is a half-baked mess because the core of the system was never finished. Depressing the Central Artery is supposed to alleviate at least some of the resulting mess by increasing the downtown capacity to handle the traffic that the Inner Belt was supposed to deal with.

(And no, they can't build the Inner Belt now -- the northern ramps (built, but cut off -- a news crew once put up a prank sign saying "Out of town drivers exit here) now lead to Storrow Drive, one of the major roads that runs along the Charles River, and the southern ramps were demolished and replaced with a commercial-vehicles-only connection to the airport.) /Brian

Waiting on Programmers?

[da3dAlus]

I thought the software was working fine? I mean, that little guy on the screen is going to town with that shovel...

OH, "Big Dig", I thought you said "Dig Dug".
Nevermind.

The Big Dig

[(H)olyGeekboy]

I read about the Big Dig last year, thanks to someone's Slashdot .sig.

Read more about it here.

Basically, the thing has gone on forever, and will likely go on forever, thanks to beaurocracy. Blaming it on the programmers/cablers is probably little more than spin at best, or pre-election blame shifting by local "oh-fish-shulls" at worst.

The Big Dig is apparently a huge fiscal landmine that some people claim will never reap the rewards of the optimists who keep greenlighting the moneystream.

(On the other hand, I live far away, and am only going on a few websites' worth of info. So that's only one point of view. :)

Re:The Big Dig

[Frothy Walrus]

Most of us up here in Boston just want the damn thing to end. It's getting there -- they've finished the bridge and lots of ventilation buildings, and they are starting to close up some of the massive holes they've dug.

Mass transit in Boston is pretty good. you can go anywhere on the subway for $1, and the buses do a decent job of coverage too. The thing that sucks is that the subway turns into a pumpkin around 12:30am.

favorite quote

[skydude_20]

Larry Bossidy, the just-retired CEO of Honeywell, one of the Dig contractors that may contribute to delayed openings of the tunnel sections, is in town tomorrow to give a speech at the Marriott Long Wharf to promote his new book. The title? Funny you should ask. It's called "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done."

Why Federal $$$ Are Being Used.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of the Federal Aid Highway Act (FAHA) of 1956. Impressed by the autobahn's usefulness during WWII, Eisenhower wanted the same thing to be available in the U.S. in case the damned Russians ever invaded and we needed to move a lot of troops quickly. All major cities and their airports were supposed to be accessible, and the Big Dig was funded because it connects I-90 to Logan airport. The tunnels are also able to withstand heavy conventional bombing. Pretty damned cool.

Re:Why Federal $$$ Are Being Used.

[stratjakt]

Actually, the Eisenhower dollars were to be meted out back in the 50's and 60's.

Boston had already jumped the gun, and spent their own cash building their SkyWay, which turned out to be an utter piece of crap.

So in the 70s they realized it was worthless, it divided the city in half, was ugly as hell, and couldn't support anywhere near the amount of traffic they had. So they came up with the idea of moving it all underground.

Now, they couldnt afford it. So they went to congress with the notion that "hey, we didn't use up our eisenhower dollars, so you can give them to us now".

Critics noted that Eisenhower wasn't president anymore, and the dollars for the Interstate plan at the time were a 'use it or lose it' type of thing. Many cities and states didn't use their entire allotment - they can't just go to congress now and ask them to pony up the dough.

They got preliminary approval, but then Reagan scrapped it, calling it pork-barrel politics. Which it was.

Funding was eventually re-approved, and here we go. Pissing away billions to correct a localised inconvenience.

Most non-bostonians call it the Money Pit.

I-93

[Anne_Nonymous]

I-93. Where else can you park in downtown Boston for free?

Re:Why Should You Care?

[daoine]

a decent chunk (>$13Bil) of FEDERAL tax dollars has gone to pay for the "Big Dig" boondoggle in Boston.

That's likely due to the fact that the road involved is Interstate 93, which is grossly incapable of handling the current traffic loads through downtown Boston. The fact that it's an Interstate means that the Federal Government funds a portion of the construction.

Regan the democrat....

[MosesJones]

Err that well known "Democratic Party" Candidate and President Ronald Regan signed up to the funding of the Big Dig, funding was continued by another Democratic leader called George Bush.

See those things waving at you in the distance ? They are the Facts, wander over and see them some time.

More roads

[YrWrstNtmr]

Building more roads to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity.

I'm a programmer in BigDig...

[LordHunter317]

The problem is not the programmers. Its the **** software we were given to work with.

The problem starts with the fact that we are the second contractor to pickup this problem, and we are required to adapt the first contractor's software to our needs. The software we have been given to work with is shoddy, badly coded, and still targets VAX C (even though it runs on an Alpha). Problems tend to crop up, and no one here really understands the system, including our contractors from the original system.

We also have all sorts of problems hiring (due to problems both on our side and their side of the table). We are never given enough money or time, and everyone here is vastly overworked.

The CA/T (Central Artery/Tunnel, or the BigDig) doesn't understand our needs or concerns, and getting help from them and their reps is like pulling teeth. Its like going to a frickin' Wrestling match, with petty arguments and name calling and bullshit all around.

Their requirements are frequently illogical and unclear, meaning time has to be spent on fixing the requirments that could better be spend on coding. We have all sorts of reliablity problems with the Alphas and assoicated hardware. It also takes about a pound of paper work and 3 days to be able to do anythign to the production systems in Boston.

The project is just one political mess, and to be honset, we are the CA/T's bitch, and get blamed for anything. The truth is that ev eryone is behind schedule, and that even if we are late deliviering, it will not matter because the tunnel will not be physically completed anyway. Kinda hard for the software to work if there's nothing out there for it to work with.

Ok, enough ranting for now. Feel free to reply or e-mail questions.

Re:I'm a programmer in BigDig...

[rodbegbie]

Forgive me if I misquote:

* It's not our fault, it's the previous contractor's.

* It's not our fault, it's management.

* It's not our fault, it's the client.

* It's not our fault, the requirement are fuzzy.

* It's not our fault, it's the politics.

Well, bad news, bucko: Welcome to the software industry. You've just used up your quota of excuses. You cannot bitch about a project until the next fical year.

rOD.

Facts back At You...Veto Override

[N8F8]

Kennedy, Senator Edward M. -

U.S. Senator who ensured the passage of the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987. This act included the federal funding for the Big Dig. President Ronald Reagan had vetoed this bill earlier that year. The senate voted to sustain this veto. Senator Kennedy allied with West Virginian Senator Robert Byrd to force a revote in the senate to override Reagan's veto. The revote was approved. At that point Kennedy and others put pressure on the deciding vote, namely, Senator Terry Sanford of N. Carolina. They threatened to pull tobacco subsidies to North Carolinian farmers. Under this pressure, Sen. Terry Sanford changed his vote and the Big Dig bill became law in April of 1987.

Yet you have time to read /.

[gatkinso]

Get back to work, you.

I know my taxes go into a big hole in the ground..

[raehl]

But I didn't know the hole was in Boston.