A state highway crew removed 117 loose panels from the walls of the Callahan Tunnel — each one bigger than a king-sized bed — late Sunday and early Monday, following an emergency inspection after a panel fell into the roadway late last week, the state’s top highway official said.
Three dozen workers pulled on every one of the 2,400 enamel-coated metal panels that line the roughly mile-long tunnel beneath Boston Harbor, after corrosion in unseen support brackets caused a panel to pop off Friday evening, said Frank DePaola, highway administrator for the Department of Transportation.
Comments
Replacing these panels and other infrastructure improvement projects should be high on the list of things the Federal government takes on in this sluggish economy. This kind of project should be done in 2013, not later, and would help reduce unemployment while providing safety and ensuring continued use of a very valuable transportation facility.
When the economy is sluggish is the ideal time to do projects of this type. The price to do it will be lower, but it will help the economy come out of the doldrums.
I realize the money will have to come from somewhere. Perhaps it is time for the government to raise the gas tax to fund needed improvements. Raising the gas tax by a penny or two a gallon every year for the next ten years would go a long way towards funding transportation improvements. This rise in gas taxes might normally slow the economy, but if the money is immediately put to work in transportation projects, it will actually stimulate the economy. There are all sorts of transportation projects that should be done. This should include improvements to mass transit, which would alleviate crowding on the highways.
A gas tax rise will also encourage people to buy cars with higher mileage or to buy electric or other alternative fuel vehicles. We should not be taxing these kinds of vehicles in some other way, but should encourage their use. Their avoidance of the gas tax is a good thing, something that will encourage more and more people to choose vehicles with alternative fuels.