Pardon Our Dust

The major road projects profiled in "Managing the Mess" [June 2001] are all still keeping construction crews hopping, with some budgets and deadlines met--and some missed--along the way.

• Utah's I-15 project through Salt Lake City: Completed ahead of schedule before the 2002 Winter Olympics; HOV lane now being extended an additional 11 miles at a cost of $31 million.
• The "Mixing Bowl" in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, D.C.: On schedule to be finished in 2007 (other state transportation projects have been postponed or canceled to fund it); the cost of the project--reorganizing a confusing intersection of three major highways--has increased from $585 million to about $700 million.
• Denver's Southeast Corridor: Project adding lanes to I-25 and constructing 19 miles of light rail is almost 60 percent complete and coming in on budget at $1.67 billion.
• Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel project (dubbed the "Big Dig"): Costing $14.6 billion, it should be done by the end of 2005; one of its final tunnels was opened last year, one elevated artery remains to be demolished.