Mass Pike did post positive report on Big Dig but Romney ordered it suppressed
Posted Wed, 2008-01-09 16:01
Good news on the Big Dig was a casualty of infighting within the Romney administration, we're told. Turnpike staff were ordered to downplay
good news about the Big Dig because it was seen as being a counter to Governor Romney's efforts to wrest control of the Turnpike from then Turnpike chairman and CEO Matt Amorello. The two were very publicly at odds for virtually the entire term of Gov Romney.
We recently criticized the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority for failing to publicize good news about the Big Dig - the good news being that for all its many problems the project has succeeded brilliantly in its main purpose. It has dramatically reduced travel delays and hugely improved people's ability to move around Boston's central area including the airport. The congestion that previously plagued the downtown area has been largely banished with the opening of the I-93 and I-90 tunnels and the many nicely designed ramps that make it such a smooth functioning distributor system
This is all well documented in a report produced by Economic Development Research Group, consultants for the Turnpike in early 2006. Though we've been trying to report the Turnpike and the Big Dig, and regularly talked to their PR people and rummaged through their website we hadn't heard of the report until it was mentioned at an IBTTA session of a finance conference by Dan Baxter of Stantec Dec 4 2007.
When we got back to the office we searched the website of the Turnpike for some ten minutes. No sign of it. We got the text off the EDRG website where it popped up almost immediately.
Why amid all the criticism of the Big Dig and the Turnpike Authority had there been no effort to get out a piece of good news? It seemed to us just a manifestation of the general incompetence with which the project and the Turnpike were being managed under Matt Amorello.
Now a caller from the Turnpike Authority tells us it wasn't as simple as that.
People there wanted the thing to be publicized. However Governor Romney's office, the caller says, insisted that all good news about the Big Dig be suppressed. A highlighting of good news might have disadvantaged the Governor in the protracted Mitt vs Matt battle for control of the Turnpike Authority.
It's there if you know where to look
The Turnpike does indeed have the report on its website, but talk about buried...
Putting the main phrases of the title in the Turnpike Authority's search box doesn't produce it. Nor does the name of the consultants.
It isn't listed where you'd logically expect it under Big Dig/Multimedia and Publications.
Nowhere under the Big Dig does this report on the Big Dig appear.
Our caller told us if - knowing the date - you search the general Turnpike News archives you'll find it. Sure enough: scroll back through a whole long list of press release titles to Feb 2006 and there between "Celebrate Spring in New England" and "MTA announces WRTA bus service from Milbury Park and Ride Lot" is the bland title "Economic Impacts of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and the Central Artery/Third Tunnel Project."
Not "Study finds Big Dig cuts congestion 85%," or "Big Dig improves Boston peakhour travel speeds threefold." No they file it with the eye-glaze-over title "Economic Impacts of..."
Anyway here are the links to the secret good news about the Big Dig:
http://www.masspike.com/user-cgi/news.cgi?dbkey=201&type=Archived&src=newsarchive
or go directly to
http://www.masspike.com/pdf/reports/MTA-Economic-ExcSmry.pdf
http://www.masspike.com/pdf/reports/MTA-Economic-V1.pdf
TOLLROADSnews 2008-01-09
good news about the Big Dig because it was seen as being a counter to Governor Romney's efforts to wrest control of the Turnpike from then Turnpike chairman and CEO Matt Amorello. The two were very publicly at odds for virtually the entire term of Gov Romney.We recently criticized the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority for failing to publicize good news about the Big Dig - the good news being that for all its many problems the project has succeeded brilliantly in its main purpose. It has dramatically reduced travel delays and hugely improved people's ability to move around Boston's central area including the airport. The congestion that previously plagued the downtown area has been largely banished with the opening of the I-93 and I-90 tunnels and the many nicely designed ramps that make it such a smooth functioning distributor systemThis is all well documented in a report produced by Economic Development Research Group, consultants for the Turnpike in early 2006. Though we've been trying to report the Turnpike and the Big Dig, and regularly talked to their PR people and rummaged through their website we hadn't heard of the report until it was mentioned at an IBTTA session of a finance conference by Dan Baxter of Stantec Dec 4 2007.
When we got back to the office we searched the website of the Turnpike for some ten minutes. No sign of it. We got the text off the EDRG website where it popped up almost immediately.
Why amid all the criticism of the Big Dig and the Turnpike Authority had there been no effort to get out a piece of good news? It seemed to us just a manifestation of the general incompetence with which the project and the Turnpike were being managed under Matt Amorello.
Now a caller from the Turnpike Authority tells us it wasn't as simple as that.
People there wanted the thing to be publicized. However Governor Romney's office, the caller says, insisted that all good news about the Big Dig be suppressed. A highlighting of good news might have disadvantaged the Governor in the protracted Mitt vs Matt battle for control of the Turnpike Authority.
It's there if you know where to look
The Turnpike does indeed have the report on its website, but talk about buried...
Putting the main phrases of the title in the Turnpike Authority's search box doesn't produce it. Nor does the name of the consultants.
It isn't listed where you'd logically expect it under Big Dig/Multimedia and Publications.
Nowhere under the Big Dig does this report on the Big Dig appear.
Our caller told us if - knowing the date - you search the general Turnpike News archives you'll find it. Sure enough: scroll back through a whole long list of press release titles to Feb 2006 and there between "Celebrate Spring in New England" and "MTA announces WRTA bus service from Milbury Park and Ride Lot" is the bland title "Economic Impacts of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and the Central Artery/Third Tunnel Project."
Not "Study finds Big Dig cuts congestion 85%," or "Big Dig improves Boston peakhour travel speeds threefold." No they file it with the eye-glaze-over title "Economic Impacts of..."
Anyway here are the links to the secret good news about the Big Dig:
http://www.masspike.com/user-cgi/news.cgi?dbkey=201&type=Archived&src=newsarchive
or go directly to
http://www.masspike.com/pdf/reports/MTA-Economic-ExcSmry.pdf
http://www.masspike.com/pdf/reports/MTA-Economic-V1.pdf
TOLLROADSnews 2008-01-09