With those three words, Mitt Romney accepted personal responsibility for the inspection, repair and reopening of the Big Dig tunnels.
Up until now, there was a muddle of fingerpointing and blame. Now all the issues going forward goes to one place: the Corner Office.
By doing this, Romney has also created a muddled situation for the future: what will happen once the repairs are made, the tunnels reopened and responsibility for maintenance and operation turned back to the Turnpike Authority? Well, hopefully Amorello will be gone and we can get a unified highway management agency in place.
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Wasn’t the Big Dig originally under the aegis of Mass. Highway? I thought that they had bollixed up the project so badly, that Cellucci or Swift transferred control to the Turnpike Authority. Does anyone else remember?
It was transferred in 1997, I think while Weld was still Governor. I don’t recall the why’s and wherefores. (It was pre-Swift.)
to transfer it, and perhaps the most significant one, was to allow the use of toll revenues to continue building the thing. I’m not sure that “bollixing it up” was the reason – since the guy who ran it at Mass Highway (Jim Kerasiotes) then went to run it at the Pike.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana, The Life of Reason, US Philosopher (1863-1952) link