BOSTON, March 31 (UPI) -- Weekday motorists flowed with relative ease through the new tunnel under Boston and over a stunning new bridge for the first time Monday, marking a milestone in the nearly completed $14.6-billion "Big Dig" construction project that has peeved drivers for a dozen years.
Monday morning traffic was described as "nothing short of a success."
The new 3.6-mile stretch of roadway is designed to carry 115,000 vehicles a day through the Liberty Tunnel under the downtown area to and over the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge spanning the Charles River.
The tunnel replaces the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway, the elevated Central Artery that had been built nearly 50 years ago to accommodate 45,000 vehicles a day but which became bogged down trying to handle some 85,000 a day.
Only the northbound side of the 1.6-mile-long tunnel, carrying Interstate 93, was opened over the weekend. The southbound side is scheduled to open next year.
Until then, traffic heading south will continue to use the Central Artery. The eyesore artery that had separated downtown Boston from its waterfront is eventually to be torn down.
The new tunnel plunges underground near South Station and emerges near the Fleet Center onto the Zakim Bridge, the centerpiece of the project.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday night, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., described the Big Dig, the largest such public works project in the country, as an "engineering marvel" that is expected to alleviate decades of traffic gridlock.
The new Zakim Bridge, illuminated in blue light at night, has become the "new symbol of Boston," according to Matthew Amorello, chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
Mayor Thomas Menino has called the bridge, which evokes images of the nearby Bunker Hill Monument and the sails of the USS Constitution, a "great new landmark" for Boston.
Officials expected it would take most of the week for confused drivers to get used to the new exits on the mainly four-lane underground roadway.
But as one Monday morning motorist noted, "Boston is confusing anyway."
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(For more information, see the Web site bigdig.com.)
