Download or read book From Dream to Reality Scaling the Construction Planning Hurdles of a Megaproject written by Orikaye Brown-West and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-11-10 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how the dream of a megaproject is realized, elucidates the various demands, and explains why it takes years to materialize. It asserts that a megaproject is any project that requires a great deal of management courage, capital, patience, and well-conceived plans. And that managing a megaproject is more than managing a major construction effort; it is also managing a public responsibility with the concomitant management accountability and transparency. It advances the Big Dig as the case study megaproject of record, because none of the other notable megaprojects in the 20th century can boast the paradoxes and the lessons that the Big Dig provides. It affirms that leadership engagement, imagination, and political alignment, facilitate the realization of such dream. It espouses good planning and invokes foresight considerations as a sine qua non for getting the right strategic gaps closed, the misdeeds avoided and the right mechanics applied for a successful project outcome.
Download or read book In DEFENSE of the BIG DIG How Politics Affected the Planning Design and Construction of the Boston Central Artery Tunnel Project written by Orikaye G. Brown-West and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-09-06 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the planning, design and construction of the Big Dig, Boston's Central Artery and Tunnel project from a personal perspective. This most complex and technologically challenging project is a paradox of praises and blame. This book defends the professionals who planned, designed and constructed it; and blames the politics of project planning for the shortcomings.
Download or read book Completing the Big Dig written by Transportation Research Board and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-03-21 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project, a 7.8 mile system of bridges and underground highways and ramps, is the most expensive public works project ever undertaken in the United States. The original cost estimate of $2.6 billion has already been exceeded by $12 billion, and the project will not be completed until 2005, seven years late. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA), the public steward of the project, requested that the National Research Council carry out an independent assessment of the project's management and contract administration practices, with a focus on the present situation and measures that should be taken to bring the project to a successful conclusion. This report presents the committee's findings and recommendations pertaining to cost, scheduling, and transitioning from the current organization dominated by consultants to an operations organization composed largely of full-time MTA staff. The report recommends that MTA establish an external, independent, peer-review program to address technical and management issues until the transition to operations and maintenance is complete; begin a media campaign now to teach drivers how to use the new system safely; and develop, immediately implement, and maintain a comprehensive security program.
Download or read book The Big Dig written by Peter Vanderwarker and published by Little Brown & Company. This book was released on 2001 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the development of the city of Boston and the reasons for creating the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project--known as "the big dig"--and outlines each step in its planning and construction.
Download or read book Completing the Big Dig written by National Research Council (U.S.). Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment and published by National Academy Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project, a 7.8 mile system of bridges and underground highways and ramps, is the most expensive public works project ever undertaken in the United States. The original cost estimate of $2.6 billion has already been exceeded by $12 billion, and the project will not be completed until 2005, seven years late. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA), the public steward of the project, requested that the National Research Council carry out an independent assessment of the project's management and contract administration practices, with a focus on the present situation and measures that should be taken to bring the project to a successful conclusion. This report presents the committee's findings and recommendations pertaining to cost, scheduling, and transitioning from the current organization dominated by consultants to an operations organization composed largely of full-time MTA staff. The report recommends that MTA establish an external, independent, peer-review program to address technical and management issues until the transition to operations and maintenance is complete; begin a media campaign now to teach drivers how to use the new system safely; and develop, immediately implement, and maintain a comprehensive security program.
Download or read book Segregation by Design written by Catalina Freixas and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-24 with total page 621 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses racial segregation in American cities. Using St. Louis as a point of departure, it examines the causes and consequences of residential segregation, and proposes potential mitigation strategies. While an introduction, timeline and historical overview frame the subject, nine topic-specific conversations – between invited academics, policy makers and urban professionals – provide the main structure. Each of these conversations is contextualized by a photograph, an editors’ note and an essay written by a respected current or former St. Louisan. The essayists respond to the conversations by speaking to the impacts of segregation and by suggesting innovative policy and design tactics from their professional or academic perspective. The purpose of the book, therefore, is not to provide original research on residential segregation, but rather to offer a unique collection of insightful, transdisciplinary reflections on the experience of segregation in America and how it might be addressed.
Download or read book Public Works written by Jeannie Meejin Yoon and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by J. Meejin Yoon, Meredith Miller.
Download or read book A Political and Institutional Analysis of Boston s Central Artery Tunnel Project written by David Luberoff and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Third Harbor Tunnel I 90 Central Artery I 93 Boston written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Policy and Planning for Large Infrastructure Projects written by Bent Flyvbjerg and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: "This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure development pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is massive cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, the paper explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not the competition's, that gain approval and funding. This results in the "survival of the unfittest," where often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, the paper presents measures for reforming policy and planning for large infrastructure projects, with a focus on better planning methods and changed governance structures, the latter being more important."--World Bank web site.
Download or read book Federal Task Force on the Boston Central Artery Tunnel Project written by U. S. Government and published by . This book was released on 2000-03-01 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Federal Government's role in the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project is one of oversight. Costing billions of Federal and State dollars, the CA/T Project is often referred to as "the largest public works project in American history." More Federal funding-$5.8 billion and growing-has been allocated to the CA/T Project than to any other construction project of its kind. As stewards of these tax dollars, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is responsible for ensuring Federal funds are used responsibly and lawfully. To fulfill this fiduciary duty to the American people, the FHWA is governed by many statutes, regulations, and policies. As made clear by these legislative and administrative directives, the FHWA's oversight role is intended to be independent of the State's management of the Project. The FHWA Division Office is expected to evaluate critically the State's programs and provide technical assistance as needed. The FHWA has a long history of relying on a strong Federal/State partnership in carrying out its oversight role. Begun at the start of the Federal-aid highway program in 1916, the concept of a "partnership" reflects the FHWA's unique oversight approach to State transportation departments, whereby relationships are based on mutual trust, fairness, respect, cooperation, and communication. Although the FHWA makes Federal-aid highway funds available to the States, each State is responsible for managing and developing its projects, subject to Federal oversight. In the case of the CA/T Project, the FHWA's long history of strong Federal/State partnerships failed. On the one hand, the FHWA failed to maintain an independent enough relationship with the State to adequately fulfill its oversight role. On the other hand, the State breached its trust with the FHWA and others by intentionally withholding knowledge of the Project's potential cost overrun. In October 1999, the CA/T Project Director began a "bottom-up" review of all construction contracts to identify all future cost exposures on a contract by contract basis. The CA/T Project undertook this comprehensive cost review out of concern that costs would substantially exceed the $10.8 billion cost referred to repeatedly by Project managers in recent years. Although the FHWA Division Office did not receive complete information from the CA/T Project, it had received a draft of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General (OIG) report dated October 7, 1999. In that draft, the OIG pointed out that the Project was experiencing significant construction cost increases, and if the trends continued the Project could need up to $942 million more in offsets or additional funding. The OIG draft report also pointed out that the Project's 1998 Finance Plan did not disclose significant cost information about the Project, such as construction cost increases or that contract awards were exceeding budget. These warnings should have caused the Division Office to scrutinize the information being provided by the Project more closely. However, the Division Office chose instead to continue to rely on assertions from the State that future cost increases were unlikely. Had FHWA independently reviewed the data provided by the OIG, it most likely would not have approved the finance plan presented by the CA/T Project in January 2000. On January 7, 2000, the Director of the CA/T Project submitted to the FHWA Massachusetts Division Office an "Annual Finance Plan" (Plan) that had been due in October 1999. According to Title 23, United States Code, Section 106, the Plan must provide a detailed estimate of the "cost to complete" the remaining elements of the CA/T Project, including reasonable assumptions of future cost increases. There was no indication in this Plan of a potential cost overrun.
Download or read book Mega Projects written by Alan A. Altshuler and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy publication Since the demise of urban renewal in the early 1970s, the politics of large-scale public investment in and around major American cities has received little scholarly attention. In Mega-Projects, Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff analyze the unprecedented wave of large-scale (mega-) public investments that occurred in American cities during the 1950s and 1960s; the social upheavals they triggered, which derailed large numbers of projects during the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the political impulses that have shaped a new generation of urban mega-projects in the decades since. They also appraise the most important consequences of policy shifts over this half-century and draw out common themes from the rich variety of programmatic and project developments that they chronicle. The authors integrate narratives of national as well as state and local policymaking, and of mobilization by (mainly local) project advocates, with a profound examination of how well leading theories of urban politics explain the observed realities. The specific cases they analyze include a wide mix of transportation and downtown revitalization projects, drawn from numerous regions—most notably Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland, and Seattle. While their original research focuses on highway, airport, and rail transit programs and projects, they draw as well on the work of others to analyze the politics of public investment in urban renewal, downtown retailing, convention centers, and professional sports facilities. In comparing their findings with leading theories of urban and American politics, Altshuler and Luberoff arrive at some surprising findings about which perform best and also reveal some important gaps in the literature as a whole. In a concluding chapter, they examine the potential effects of new fiscal pressures, business mobilization to relax environmental constraints, and security concerns in the wake of September 11. And they make clear their own views about how best to achieve a balance between developmental, environmental, and democratic values in public investment decisionmaking. Integrating fifty years of urban development history with leading theories of urban and American politics, Mega-Projects provides significant new insights into urban and intergovernmental politics.
Download or read book Governing Greater Boston written by Charles C. Euchner and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Planning the City Upon a Hill written by Lawrence W. Kennedy and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of Boston's planning history. Nine chapters detail the key developments that shaped each period of Boston's growth, focusing on the post-World War II era. The text describes the process and significance of all the major projects - from the first wharves to the latest skyscrapers.
Download or read book The Big Dig at Night written by Dan McNichol and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spectacular photographs of Boston's Big Dig at night--and an inside account of what goes on while the city sleeps.
Download or read book From the Atlantic to the Great Lakes written by William H. Becker and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A General Plan for the Central Business District written by Boston (Mass.). City Planning Board and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ...Discusses the regional metropolitan area role of Boston's downtown central business district and present conditions in the area (with evaluations and projections); examines land use and transportation issues and suggests how this urban renewal plan should be implemented; also includes an aerial photograph of the area; a copy of the 1st and 3rd and 4th drafts are also kept on the BRA number; copies of these items were in the BRA collection...
