161 lane miles of highway are being laid in a 7.5-mile corridor. 4,800 trees and 33,000 shrubs will be planted. The challenge was to do all this in the middle of an old and densely populated city without disrupting the subway and Amtrak trains running above the new underground highway, without exacerbating painful commutes, without driving residents nuts and without destroying local businesses. Project officials cite these necessities as the reason why the cost has skyrocketed, and, indeed, they are not lying. Nor are they telling the whole truth.
Cost overruns are endemic to the construction business.
IT has no power over the weather or soil. But IT can help conscientious project managers keep contractors accountable for their work and ensure that the work being done each day is in line with the master schedule and track costs. So if a contractor discovers a hidden water main, the removal of which may cause a delay or necessitate adding another crew to remove it, the project manager can IT has no power over the weather or soil, but it can help project managers track costs. The coordination issues are phenomenal. CIO wanted to know whether a lack of IT might have been a factor in turning the Big Dig into the largest money pit in the history of the nation.