Open space

Natsios backs funding for surface artery

by Laura A. Siegel

As the Turnpike Authority slashes at the Big Dig's budget, will there be money left to fund the open-space design on the surface artery? With the reassurances of newly appointed Big Dig head Andrew Natsios and the formation of a legislative commission to deal with the problem, it looks like there just might.

"If we're going to do something that is going to last a long time, we ought to do it right," Natsios, who is known as a fiscal conservative, told a crowd of open-space advocates, engineers, city residents, and a host of other concerned professionals at a Central Artery Environmental Oversight Committee meeting on May 16. Natsios said the design and maintenance of the surface is a top priority, and he pledged to spend half his time on the project. "This is in the category of the Back Bay and Copley Square and other parts of Boston that still grace the city," he said. "I don't want anyone putting my name in as the moron who screwed it up."

But Natsios alone won't have final say over the design, ownership, and maintenance of the area. As he spoke, the legislature was debating -- as part of the Big Dig bailout plan -- a bill calling for the formation of a commission that would be responsible for these tasks. On the evening of May 16, the House and Senate passed the bill; as the Phoenix goes to press, the governor has yet to sign it. The 12-person commission -- three people each appointed by the governor, the mayor, the Senate president, and the Speaker of the House, including the Turnpike Authority chair, the BRA head, and the two Transportation Committee chairs -- would file a report of its findings and recommendations by December 31.

The Big Dig budget sets aside $30 million for the design of the surface of the central section of the corridor alone -- the slash of land through downtown that most of us think of when we think "Big Dig." But what if an ideal surface design would cost more? The money for the artery's surface is a tiny percentage of the cost of the Big Dig, Natsios pointed out later: "We're not going to compromise the Central Artery over a couple million dollars."