Highway Teardown Tour | 11. Boston, MA

Summary

The Big Dig — Highway Teardown Tour: Boston, MA

Podcast: The Big Dig
Host: Ian Koss (GBH News)
Episode: Highway Teardown Tour | 11. Boston, MA
Date: July 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, recorded live at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, revisits the crucial but underexplored final chapter of Boston’s Big Dig: the creation and legacy of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Host Ian Koss convenes two guests with firsthand experience—Chris Cook, Executive Director of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, and Stephanie Pollack, former Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration and ex-Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation.

The conversation explores the maze of politics, financing, design, and public input that shaped the Greenway, and draws lessons for other cities considering highway removal or transformation. The episode dives into hard-fought compromises, evolving urban visions, and the challenge of balancing local and regional interests after such a transformative urban project.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting the Finale of the Big Dig (03:51)

• Ian Koss opens by explaining how their original Big Dig podcast series, like the project itself, seemed to never end and ultimately left out what became of the land after the highway was removed.
• The Rose Kennedy Greenway—17 acres of meandering parkland on top of the Big Dig tunnel—is described as both a victory for public space and a product of compromise. Its “greenness is not entirely by design.”
• Koss frames the episode as valuable for other cities starting out on similar highway rethinking projects, highlighting Boston as both a cautionary tale and potential inspiration.

2. Conservation Law Foundation and the Origins of the Greenway (05:42)

• Stephanie Pollack recounts her early involvement with Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) at MIT and how the group’s strategy was not to oppose or support the Big Dig wholesale, but to extract benefits—especially green space and transit—from the project in legal settlements.
  • “We could live with [the project] if we could attach to it other things that would get paid for, preferably with federal highway money…” (07:20)
• CLF’s lawsuit was, paradoxically, welcomed by some state officials who wanted political cover to ensure transit and park benefits would actually be delivered.
  • “Sometimes people in the government want you to sue them.” (08:10)
• The 75% green space stipulation was codified both in legal settlements and in early city planning documents.
  • “The city's initial planning process as early as 1991 also said 75% green space, 25% building…” (09:07)

3. The Post-Completion Crisis: An ‘Urban Void’ (10:16)

• Host and guests recall the bleak early years of the Greenway after the highway came down—grand plans for civic institutions fell through, leaving a sense that a generational investment had produced a barely-activated void.
• A key factor: after years of delays and mounting costs, there was no capital left to build museums, gardens, or art centers.
  • “As the project got more and more expensive…the feds cut things off. No one had money to then invest in the park parcels.” (11:50)
• From 2005–2015, the Greenway lived under precarious month-to-month leases with MassDOT as landlord—a sign of ongoing political stalemate.
  • “I was actually shocked to find out that MassDOT was still signing annually and in some cases, monthly leases…I literally remember someone saying, ‘we need you to sign this one month extension of the lease with the Greenway.’” (13:17)

4. How Funding and Governance Came Together (15:09)

• Stephanie Pollack explains how she, as Secretary of Transportation, “threatened to zero out” state funding to force the city and business community to contribute to the Greenway, breaking a political logjam.
  • “The state had been putting money in. The city had not put any money in. The business community was putting some philanthropic money in, but not through any kind of an assessment.”
• Chris Cook reflects on the city’s position, emphasizing former Mayor Menino’s aversion to threats and the eventual multi-stakeholder funding deal that stabilized the Greenway.
  • “He was not a man who responded well to threats in general. Typically he had a very positive force of pushing threats in a different direction.” (16:27)
• Ultimately, a four-way partnership among the state, city, businesses, and the Greenway Conservancy was reached by 2017—long after the Big Dig’s completion.

5. The Limits and Possibilities of Parks-Over-Tunnels (17:30)

• Technical challenges abound: at some points the tunnel is inches below the surface, limiting what can be planted or built above. Federal regulations tightly control what goes atop federally funded tunnels.
  • “There are points where the tunnel is like two and a half feet away.” (17:30)
  • “Federal highway does not want tree roots growing down into…the tunnel.” (17:52)
• Yet, as trees and plantings have matured, the Greenway’s lushness and diversity have become its signature. Chris Cook emphasizes that open space—and the absence of buildings—has been a surprising success.
  • “The park is really about the buildings that weren’t built because that allowed more space for these gardens.” (18:21)
  • “It’s just hard to imagine that this park that folks were highly critical of when it first opened, now…it’s bucolic…but thank goodness it’s devoid of buildings.”

6. The Contested Vision: Buildings or Green? (19:09)

• Koss references archival designs showing more buildings, and notes that a common critique is that there’s “too much open space.”
• Pollack argues that more built destinations could make the Greenway a regional, not just local, asset—drawing lessons from other cities’ approaches, like housing in Rochester or active waterfronts in Seattle.
  • “The buildings were intended to be destinations…the space was going to be this combination. It’s not. Should we ever revisit that?” (21:29)
• Cook disagrees: “No. The most important thing for a city park to be filled with is people…we desperately need open space in the city…I actually don’t think that the open space is enough. I actually think the open space needs to be expanded.” (24:00)
• Both note that, especially in underserved neighborhoods (e.g., Chinatown), more open space is still urgently needed.

7. The Ramp Dilemma and Why Buildings Didn’t Happen (25:01)

• Pollack explains that structural ramp parcels were meant to be covered by nonprofit cultural buildings, but the combination of cost and complexity doomed those ambitions.
  • “If we knew we were never going to build buildings to cover the ramps, we shouldn’t have had those ramps…there’s actually nothing really great you can do with ramps.” (25:01)

8. Evolving the Greenway Through Events and Art (27:31)

• Cook highlights the role of free public programming (400 events last year) and temporary art as alternative ways the Greenway serves as a civic destination.
  • “What is that sense of connection people are getting? Is that turning into a draw with no ticket barrier? That’s one of the beauties of the park…”

9. National Lessons on Infrastructure and Highway Removal (30:11)

• Pollack discusses her experience at the Federal Highway Administration: the agency’s unique structure (offices in all 50 states), importance of state buy-in, and lessons from the federal “Reconnecting Communities” program.
  • “The impetus for change needs to come from states.” (31:31)
  • “What surprised me…was that there were places where the state transportation department was actually willing to work with the community and the places where they absolutely disagreed.” (32:21)
• Notable example: In Birmingham, Alabama, state and federal funds raised a viaduct, creating a shaded park—“making it a better neighbor”—with amenities like lighted playgrounds and dog parks, rather than simply tearing the highway down.
  • “It’s not down or up, it’s better or worse, and we should all be striving for better.” (38:46)

10. The Search for Shared Vision & Lessons for Other Cities (35:35)

• Both guests stress that it’s easier to agree a highway should come down than to agree what should replace it. Success depends on deliberate, inclusive visioning and aligning public, political, and financial support early.
  • “It’s going to be a lot of work and money to take that piece of transportation infrastructure away. You got to have something worthwhile in its place. And that’s kind of the lesson of the greenway.” (35:39)
  • “If you could get to those benefits sooner, that would be a good thing.” (36:01)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On legal strategy:
  “Sometimes people in the government want you to sue them.” — Stephanie Pollack (08:10)
• On building consensus:
  “As a parent of young children, threats and holding one’s breath get attention. You know, sometimes they're successful too.” — Stephanie Pollack (15:21)
• On the open space debate:
  “The park is really about the buildings that weren’t built because that allowed more space for these gardens.” — Chris Cook (19:09)
• On regional fairness:
  “There are people in Palmer and Greenfield who contributed to the Big Dig...and the buildings were intended to be destinations…a part of this publicly created with billions of public dollars land be not just for the immediate neighbors.” — Stephanie Pollack (21:29)
• On evolving public space:
  “Spaces can evolve. I think that's really important.” — Chris Cook (27:31)
• On national takeaways:
  “It’s not down or up, it’s better or worse, and we should all be striving for better.” — Stephanie Pollack (38:46)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |--------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:51 | Introduction, the unfinished story | | 03:51–09:35 | Guests introduced; CLF’s role and early vision | | 09:35–14:56 | Who owns the land; bleak post-Big Dig years | | 15:01–16:51 | How funding & governance gridlock was resolved | | 17:30–18:21 | Technical limits of parks-over-tunnels | | 19:09–24:00 | Debate: buildings vs. more open space | | 25:01–26:08 | Why buildings on ramp parcels never happened | | 27:31–28:19 | Events/programming as evolving public use | | 30:11–36:01 | National lessons: Federal Highway perspective | | 36:27–37:22 | Favorite Greenway spots: hidden plaque, mural | | 38:08–39:28 | Final question: if you could tear down a highway | | 39:28–end | Reflections & closing remarks |

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Memorable Moments

• The revelation that the Greenway’s “greenness” is, in part, a result of failed building projects and political compromise, not an original design intent.
• The detailed explanation of how technical and regulatory constraints (federal highway funding, tunnel depth) shape what is possible—even decades later.
• The live anecdotes about Boston municipal politics, referencing former Mayor Tom Menino’s famously combative-yet-productive style.
• The national comparative context—Seattle, Rochester, Birmingham—emphasizing that there’s no single “right answer.”
• Both guests’ picks for favorite, “overlooked” Greenway features: a plaque marking colonial lawn bowling, and the ever-changing public art mural on the ventilation building.

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Concluding Insights

The Greenway is both a symbol of Boston’s ability to make the best of a politically and financially complicated situation—and a textbook case for how hard it is to deliver on big urban promises after a major teardown. The ultimate lesson shared is that highway removal only succeeds with a clear, shared vision for what comes next—whether that’s gardens, art, cultural centers, or just a really great park.

“It’s not down or up, it’s better or worse, and we should all be striving for better.” — Stephanie Pollack (38:46)

“When the Rose Kennedy Greenway is finished, and it's not finished, it'll be spectacular. And it's a destination unto itself.” — Chris Cook (24:00)

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Transcript

[Ian Koss]

Support for the Big Dig comes from the law firm of Davis Malm. Immigration laws are complex. From multinational businesses to entrepreneurs with families, their attorneys assist in obtaining short and long term immigration benefits. Learn [e-mail] and also from New England Recovery center, providing inpatient addiction treatment in state of the art facilities located in Westborough, Mass. All all major insurance plans accepted. Learn [e-mail] when my co producer Isabel Hibbard and I were working on our original series about Boston's Big Dig, we would sometimes joke that the podcast, over time, started to resemble its subject. We thought it would take a year to produce. It took more like a year and a half. We thought it would be eight episodes originally ended up being nine. We thought that it would cost a certain number that I won't say, but it definitely ended up costing more. And so the longer our project went on, the more we could empathize with the poor state bureaucrats we were interviewing about their project. But there is one last way in which our podcast also mirrors its subject, which is that when we finally arrived at what felt like the climax of the story the end of construction, the opening of the tunnel, the tearing down of the elevator central artery, we, the podcast producers, were so worn out by

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

that point that we couldn't really think

[Ian Koss]

about what came next. So if you've listened to that original series, you know, we basically ended the story right there. Even though I've always felt like there was one more chapter left, one more piece of the story that never got the attention it deserved. My name is Ian Koss and from GBH News, this is the Big Dig Highway Tear Down Tour. For our final hometown stop of the tour, I want to revisit that last chapter of the Big Dig itself.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

It's the story of what we know

[Ian Koss]

today as the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a 17 acre park that winds its way through downtown Boston along the path of the old expressway. If you've never been, it's basically a series of park plots divided up by cross streets every few blocks, like a green dotted line through the city. Along the way there's a beer garden, a giant mural, a merry go round. But largely the Greenway is just that green open space, gardens, trees, grass. And as you'll hear, the greenness of the Greenway is not entirely by design. In fact, the creation of this park was every bit as fraught and contested as the rest of the Big Dig. And for that reason, I also think it's instructive, especially for the other cities we've been to on this tour that are just setting out on this long journey of rethinking their downtown highways. For this conversation, I wanted to bring together two people who were there in the room as the Greenway's future was hashed out and who to this day have different visions for what the Greenway should be. I'm so grateful we landed with the perfect pair of people to tie it all together. The local and the national, the past and the present. We recorded live at the MIT Museum in Cambridge.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Please join me in welcoming our incredible guests for tonight. Chris Cook, who is the executive director of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Come on out. And Stephanie Pollack, who most recently was the Deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Now, Stephanie, we have to start with you because you have some very deep, deep Big dig lore underneath your resume. We're going to unpack the whole resume tonight. And I don't know if I told you this or not, but we tried mightily to get in touch with you when we were producing the original series. So I'm curious, did your press people do a really good job of insulating you from us or were you personally ignoring my emails?

[Stephanie Pollack]

It was my people. I had people at that point. I do not now. So this is sort of the first time in a decade where I do not have some group of wonderful, wonderful,

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

we're all about civil servants here, chiefs

[Stephanie Pollack]

of staff and communications people and lawyers who would tell me. So I did. I knew that you were in touch. I made a weak attempt to convince them that I should be allowed to talk to you and I was unsuccessful.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Yeah. And I should say to your credit, after it was all said and done, when you're out of government, you reached out to me and I'm grateful for that and that's why we are sitting here. So some of you may know that before you were at Federal highway you were the Secretary of Transportation, State of Massachusetts. Before you were Secretary of Transportation you worked at a little upstart environmental group called Conservation Law Foundation. How did you start at clf?

[Stephanie Pollack]

So I actually started at CLF when I was an undergrad here. Here at mit here at M. My junior and senior years there was an off campus undergraduate research opportunities program and I found this posting in a hallway at MIT for this off campus job for a scientist or engineer and ended up working there for my junior and senior years and then going back after law school.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

If we could go back and tell your 20 year old self or maybe your 18 year old self, 19 year

[Stephanie Pollack]

old self started at CLF. Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

That you would one day be the deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. What would that young, idealistic environmentalist engineer have thought?

[Stephanie Pollack]

I'd probably laugh. When I came to mit, I actually went home and I asked my parents if, in addition to doing an engineering degree, I really wanted to do this political science degree. My mother said to me, you could never work for the government. You're too impatient. I thought of myself as the person who would be on the outside kind of banging away, which is what Conservation Law foundation did and did not really think about going inside until Governor Baker passed.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So let's talk about the banging away from the outside. Explain to all of us how the CLF created the Rose Kennedy Greenway. What is the connection there between this environmental group and this strip of greenery that we now enjoy in downtown Boston?

[Stephanie Pollack]

So in the 1980s, when the big Dig was going through the permitting and public process, most folks fell into one of two categories. They either loved it or they hated it. And the Conservation Law foundation was in a third place, which was, we could live with it if we could attach to it other things that would get paid for, preferably with federal highway money, that would mitigate the impact you have and create net benefits. Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Was it awkward to go up against? Because this is the Dukakis administration. People have listened to the show, are a member of Fred Salvucci, you know, was running the state transportation agency, and you were suing them.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Mm.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Was it awkward?

[Stephanie Pollack]

Let's see. Is Fred here? Okay. Sometimes people in the government want you to sue them.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

This is a dirty secret I've come to understand.

[Stephanie Pollack]

I would say it was actually the first thing I learned at the Conservation Law firm. Sometimes they didn't. Don't get me wrong. But sometimes they do. And one of the reasons is because the people who are putting the Big Dig together really were committed to seeing it as part of a bigger city building and transportation thing. And they wanted the transit stuff to get done, and they wanted the parks to get built. And one way that you can do that is to get a settlement in a lawsuit that requires you to. And that way you can sort of shrug and say, well, you know, I have to.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So if we go back into that settlement, there is specific language in there around green space. 75% green space on what was the elevated central artery. So a commitment to that.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yes. And to be fair, the city's initial planning process as early as 1991 also said 75% green space, 25% building. So it wasn't entirely made up either by Fred Salvucci and the Massachusetts Department or by the Conservation Law Foundation. We were all trying to take our lead from all the other stakeholders who were working on the Big Dig, which is as clear from your podcast. There were a lot of them.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Right. So let's fast forward. And, Chris, I want to bring you into the conversation. It's now the 2000s. The Big Dig is done. The highway has come down. Who actually owns that land?

[Chris Cook]

Yeah. So most of what you think about at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy is owned by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Interesting. So it's really. DOT has this big park project.

[Chris Cook]

Yeah. Which is unusual for them. Right. So for them, it's really advantageous that they have the conservancy to activate that space and care for it and maintain it in the way that would be a reach for dot, I think, to manage.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So before we get to the ultimate agreement that the Greenway does now work under, I want to just kind of get ourselves back into what it was like in 2005, 2006, 2007, revisiting some of the reporting from that time. And it's pretty bleak. You know, you might recall there were plans for all these civic institutions on what is, you know, over what was the central artery. There was supposed to be a ymca. There was supposed to be a museum of the city of Boston. I mean, stop and think about it. The city of Boston does not have a museum dedicated to the city. Right. There was supposed to be an art center. There was supposed to be a glass garden. There were all these grand visions that all fell away. And I found this New York Times article from 2007 talking about that strip of land as an urban void. And there really was, from the reporting at the time, the sense that we did all this. We spent these billions of dollars, all these plans have fallen through, and now we get this. This empty space. How did it get from there to the Greenway that we know today?

[Stephanie Pollack]

Well, I'll tell the MassDOT side. Maybe Chris will tell the conservancy side. We'll see if they have anything in common.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

And I should maybe just point out this is important at this time. You are now the Secretary of transportation in the 2010s.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yes. So, again, there were these grand visions. And if you think about the Big Dig, and you talked about this in the first season podcast, it was always going to be more than a transportation project. It's an important transportation project, but it was always about knitting the city together. Right. And so part of that conversation is also a conversation about who pays for that part. Right. And as the project got more and more expensive and took longer and longer, the feds cut things off. And so in the end, it was big reason that things looked so awful in 2007 and 2008 when you read that article, was no one had money to then invest in the park parcels.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

And just. It's a little confusing because you both have held many roles over time. But to emphasize, part of the reason I wanted to talk to these two folks together is that at this key juncture, when all this was getting sorted out, Stephanie, you were running, you were the secretary of transportation. Chris, you were then working on arts,

[Chris Cook]

tourism and special events. And so we were activating most of the organizations for the city bosses in the city.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yes.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So you two were like city and state essentially at the table. So how did you get the city and business district to pony up the money?

[Stephanie Pollack]

Hold your breath till you turn blue. So when I became secretary at the beginning of 2015, after the snow and we had time to think about other things, I was.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Who's here for the winter of 2015? There we go.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Wow.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Okay. Snowmageddon, we remember.

[Stephanie Pollack]

I was actually shocked to find out that MassDOT was still signing annually and in some cases, monthly leases with the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Yeah, monthly lease.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yeah, because they couldn't agree, so they would roll over the lease for a month, somehow hoping that that would be the month they would figure it out.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Hold on. The state DOT is the landlord.

[Stephanie Pollack]

That's right. Because it's the roof of the tunnel. Right, right, right. What we experience is the park under your feet.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Your park is our roof is the tunnel.

[Stephanie Pollack]

And the federal highway administration has very strict rules for what you can do on the roofs of tunnels that you build with federal money.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

And so month to month, you're renewing this lease. And it could fall apart at any point.

[Stephanie Pollack]

I just imagine at some point between when I stopped paying attention and when I became secretary that they had, like, worked this out. And then I, like, come in and I literally remember someone saying, we need you to sign this one month extension of the lease with the Greenway. And I'm like, no, no, it's 2015. We must have like a long term financial arrangement. Right. And the answer was no. And at the time, the state had been putting money in. The city had not put any money in. The business community was putting some philanthropic money in, but not through any kind of an assessment. Right. And the greenway had existed for a while, and the legislature had they were the lessee. In other words, MassDOT didn't pick the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. It was a statute. So it wasn't like I could go

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

and like not anyone could rent out the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Who wants to run the parks on

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

the top of the tunnel?

[Stephanie Pollack]

Like we were partners but the partnership was not working.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Right. As I understand it, you threatened to zero out state funding for the Greenway.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yes, that's the. Hold your breath.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

There's a Globe article from the Times saying we will the green way become the brown way?

[Stephanie Pollack]

So sometimes, especially when things have been going on for a long time, you need to get people's attention. As a parent of young children, threats and holding one's breath get attention. You know, sometimes they're successful too.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

And the mayor is not so different.

[Stephanie Pollack]

The truth was MassDOT had kicked in $30 million. That's not to build it, that's to run it after it was all built with no money from the business community and no money from the city. And there is no source of money in a transportation department budget for parks. You cannot take your federal transportation money and spend it on parks. And so it may not seem like a big amount of money for a billion dollar a year agency, but it's like every penny of the discretionary money you have is all going to to 15 acres of park in one of the 351 cities and towns. It's not politically viable in the long term.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

How did the threat of zero state funding for the Greenway land in the mayor's office?

[Chris Cook]

You know, I worked for Tom Menino for a long time. He was not a man who responded well to threats in general. Typically he had a very positive force of pushing threats in a different direction.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

And one making the threats, you know,

[Chris Cook]

he was just as long as it ends in a productive place, I don't think anyone really cares how you got there.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yes, and to be fair, we worked it out and it's this four part system and the state has a role and the city and the business community and the conservancy stepped up. So we got where we needed to go. To me, what's amazing is we got there in like 2017 and the big Dig was like done and open years before.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Right. So we landed this deal where the business community, the city and the state are going to share. We get it all worked out. Could you talk about the physical constraints of a park on top of a tunnel? I think most people don't even understand how close is the tunnel, how Much dirt is there.

[Chris Cook]

Yeah. So at certain points, the tunnel is well over 20 to 40ft away. There are points where the tunnel is like two and a half feet away.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

You could dig with a shovel in your bare hands.

[Chris Cook]

No, that's not allowed, Ian. Not a thing that anyone can do because there's federal highway rules.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Or plant a tree whose roots. Right. Like how many of us have tripped over a sidewalk. Right. Where the roots of some tree that someone in a well meaning thought put in a sidewalk and it pushed it up. Well, federal highway does not want tree roots growing down into. You may remember there were some leaks, there was some water infiltration. Yeah. We didn't want tree roots in the tunnel.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

But there are some big trees on the Greenway. You just have to plant some massive

[Chris Cook]

trees and I'll say they were small when they were planted. Right. So, you know, you fast forward 20 years and the law of, you know, unintended consequences we've now achieved because we have so much diverse species of trees that we have an arboretum status. It's just hard to imagine that this park that folks were highly critical of when it first opened, now that it's matured, it's lushed, it's verdant, it's bucolic, but. But thank goodness it's devoid of buildings. I mean, it's so funny. It's just like life is about the jobs that you don't get when you interview. Right. The park is really about the buildings that weren't built because that allowed more space for these gardens. And I think it's worth it.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So I want to talk about the buildings or the lack of buildings. After the original series came out, I did an event at the Boston Public Library Map room, the Leventhal Map Center. I don't know if any of you have been there, but it's an amazing, amazing place. And the archivist there pulled out all these designs for what the Rose Kennedy Greenway could have been. These other visions that I had never seen before. There was one where basically the whole strip of what was the highway was built. It was the like every architect gets a building plan. There was one where there were these blocks that were built up, where the urban fabric was re knit, creating these sort of like square parks. Kind of like how in Manhattan you have Thompson Square park and Washington Square Park. And it was interesting and provocative for me as somebody who had only ever imagined the Greenway as it was to imagine these other versions of it. And that is the critique I hear most of the Greenway is that There is too much open space. I was curious, Stephanie, as somebody who's following it from the outside and as these visions came to fruition, how did you feel about the balance between built and unbuilt space?

[Stephanie Pollack]

So, on the one hand, it is only 15 acres, which is a huge amount of space to create in the middle of a major American city all at once. You can't put everything in 15 acres. What I would say is the most important thing for me, and this is true for a lot of the communities that you've been doing your teardown tour that I was privileged to go visit when I was at Federal highway with Secretary Buttigieg. The important thing is that there be a shared vision of what you want to put where there used to be a highway. And that won't be the same every place. Right. So you were in Rochester, and they really put a ton of housing in buildings. They never tore down that road to put parks on it. They tore it down to create a neighborhood. If you go to Seattle, where they took the Alaska Way viaduct down and they've just pretty much finished all of the new waterfront parks.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Also on the highway teardown tour.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Also on the highway teardown tour in a place that I have a child who lives. So we've been out there. The parks are amazing, but they have way more what would be called active uses, right? There's an aquarium and there's a Ferris wheel, and there's retail shops and there's restaurants and there's multiple playgrounds. There's just a lot of stuff to do. And so for me, the issue with the buildings and why Chris and I respectfully can disagree on the buildings is the Big Dig was built with money that came from not only all over the United States, but ultimately all over Massachusetts. It is a great 15 acres for people who live and work and are nearby or are visiting Boston. But there are people in Palmer and Greenfield who contributed to the Big Dig. And there's no. The buildings were intended to be destinations, right? You could imagine coming into town to go to a Boston museum, to a horticultural garden under glass, to an arts and cultural center. And that's not the only thing. You can do that with parks, too. But I'm just saying that's why it was split between buildings and spaces, is to have a part of this publicly created with billions of public dollars land be not just for the immediate neighbors. And if I would have one observation, not actually since the Greenway was created, but before in those conversations, there was a lot of domination by the immediate Neighbors, Right? If you're going to be nearby, you don't necessarily want an amphitheater with concerts going on. You don't necessarily want playgrounds with children. Right. You don't want a big museum that people are going to drive to and is going to have events. I just. When I go to Seattle, when I go to the Birmingham Walk in Birmingham, when I go to other places where they're. I mean, the Birmingham Walk is like. It's not like Seattle. They don't have that much money in Birmingham, but they have pickleball courts and they have a skate park and they have a dog park, and they have a little history of civil rights display. Like the community sort of said, here's a bunch of things we would like on the Birmingham Walk, which is actually under instead of above. So the important thing is that that's what people in Birmingham wanted in their space. Right? And so the question is, we thought the space was going to be this combination. It's not. Should we ever revisit that?

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Chris, do you think there should be buildings on the Rose Kennedy Greenway?

[Chris Cook]

No. So the most important thing for a city park to be filled with is people. City parks are for people, and we desperately need open space in the city of Boston. If you go to Chinatown and ask the question, do we have too much open space? You will get a resounding no. The lowest air quality in the commonwealth, the lowest served by tree canopy, the worst affected by Heat Island. That's a place where they're needing open space intervention. So the question is, I actually don't think that the open space is enough. I actually think the open space needs to be expanded. I think that opens up opportunities to create what will largely be considered the greatest linear park in the United States of America. When the Rose Kennedy Greenway is finished, and it's not finished, it'll be spectacular. And it's a destination unto itself.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Do you think it's too late to potentially revisit some of those cultural institutions, or do you think that door is closed?

[Stephanie Pollack]

I think that one of the reasons. There were a lot of reasons the buildings didn't get built, but one of the reasons is that the, like I said, money was running out as we got to that point in the construction of the Big Dig. And most of the parcels that were going to have buildings are the parcels that are lovingly referred to by the engineers as the ramp parcels. They are the ones you hate to walk over, actually, because there are ramps coming on and off. The thought was the buildings would cover the Ramps. The one thing I would say is if we knew we were never going to build buildings to cover the ramps, we shouldn't have had those ramps. And there was years of the ramp studies. Chris and I both remember those years, no joke, like, what can we do with the ramps if you can't have them be a park and you can't have them be a building? And I think the conclusion in the end was nothing. There's actually nothing really great you can do with ramps. So that's my only. So I think the ramps.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Maybe there's like a pollinator meadow around one of the ramps, right?

[Chris Cook]

There is. You can actually see a parcel six. You can actually see the rebar sticking out. Like they came to work on Tuesday and then they stopped on Wednesday thinking

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

that there was going to be a building or structure on top of the ramp.

[Stephanie Pollack]

The ramps made it expensive. It's not the only reason the buildings didn't happen, but one of the reasons is that we basically were trying to punt the cost of covering up these ramps onto non profit. All of these were nonprofit buildings. These were not 25 story apartment buildings that you could ask to do it. Right. Culture and Arts Center, Garden on the Green, YMCA Museum. And it turned out a nonprofit institution has enough money raising money to build a building, let alone build a building that then has to integrate with a whole bunch of ramps. So I think we're not going to get buildings there. I just think that revisiting at least occasionally the question of whether you have the right mix of more active and more passive activities, especially again, we don't have in Boston the equivalent of a Millennium Park. We don't have the equivalent of a Seattle waterfront park anywhere else. We don't have an equivalent of the Birmingham Walk or Navy Pier. I love trees and I love arboretums. And maybe that's the right answer. And I'm not a park expert, but I also know that there are people who go to parks not just to walk through grasses and trees, they go to parks to have a thing to do while they're in the park. And again, it's not my opinion, but it's. Do we have that conversation as a city and a region periodically. Because spaces can evolve.

[Chris Cook]

Spaces can evolve. I think that's really important. One of the ways that we're trying to connect people in neighborhoods is through that programming. So you don't have a major cultural institution. Well, last year we had 400 free public events in the park. Right. And so what is that sense of connection people are getting? Is that turning into a draw with no ticket barrier. That's one of the beauties of the park, is that it's completely accessible, that you're not going through a gate or a turnstile. To have that experience when you're seeing a work of art three stories tall on the Dewey Square mural, it's just fantastic. So I think looking at the park and exactly what I'll always call you, secretary. Sorry, exactly what the secretary said is what ways can it evolve?

[Ian Koss]

After the break, we arrive at the most recent title in Stephanie Pollock's resume, Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, the nexus of all highway decisions in the entire country. She shares with us some of the lessons she learned from her time there and while she's at it, challenges the entire premise, concept and name of this tour. Stay tuned. Support for the Big Dig comes from the MIT Federal Credit Union mortgages designed to make your home financing journey effortless. Federally insured by NCUA equal housing lender NMLS number 699225. Support also comes from Boston Ski and Tennis, Ski or snowboard inside all summer long on the area's only immersive simulator experience ride on the same machine the US Ski Team trains on all year round. Available in the Newton location. Learn more online at bostonski&tennis.com.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

I want to broaden the conversation a little bit to talk about some of these other cities that I've been visiting on the tour and some of the other cities that are like Boston trying to reckon with their own downtown highways. So Secretary Stephanie in my head, Secretary is Pete Buttigieg. Okay, Right, right, okay.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Sorry, not me.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So could you fill us in a little bit on your own next chapter? How did you wind up in Washington, D.C. working for Secretary Buttigieg? Was it weird to go and work inside Federal Highway?

[Stephanie Pollack]

No, because Federal highway is, I believe, the only federal agency in the entire government that actually has an office in every state. And that's because Federal highway grew out of the Interstate program. And when Congress decided that the way we were going to build our interstate highways was that we were going to basically have a partnership between this federal agency which would hand the money to a state highway agency which would build it, they created federal highways with an office in every state and they actually required every state to create a highway later transportation agency. So this partnership has existed for half a century all over the country, and there is no analog like it anywhere. And so when I became Federal Highway Administrator, I think the first thing that I did was literally get on the phone for hours with every single One of the 50 state administrators, most of whom told me that they had whole administrators come and go that they'd never spoken to. And I did it in the first weeks because it's like, what's going on in your state? What's important to you? What kinds of questions are you getting? So the impetus for change needs to come from states.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So I don't know if I ever told you this, but, you know, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill was really the reason we made the Big Dig podcast. That's what kind of got the gears turning for me about, oh, maybe there's a story here about the infrastructure project of my youth. Maybe there's something worth revisiting there. Of course, nested within that 2021 infrastructure bill, there was also this pot of money for this thing called reconnecting Communities that has spawned so many of the projects that we're talking about on this tour. And you worked inside this program. Were you surprised by the response, by how many cities came to federal highway saying, oh, we'd like to tear down this highway?

[Stephanie Pollack]

So I was definitely surprised by the response. What I was more surprised by, so there were two kinds of places in my way of seeing the world. Places where the state transportation department was actually willing to work with the community and the places where they absolutely disagreed. And there are plenty of those. So I was actually not that there were any places that the state transportation department was actually on board with at least exploring.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

You were expecting the states to fight

[Stephanie Pollack]

the cities state dots, right? I gave every state dot head, having been one, I gave them my cell phone number. Like in the first month I was Federal Highway All 50. All 50. And I said, if you are getting no's from your federal highway district office, you can call me. Did they call you frequently or text? And I was not surprised to get. When the program went out, I got texts from a number of states that said, just to be clear, we own it. You can give them all the grants you want for them to plan a thing, but at the end of the day, it's ours and they can't take it down.

[Chris Cook]

Wow.

[Stephanie Pollack]

So do not waste your grant money. Okay? That didn't surprise me. But if states ask the question, am I allowed to tear this highway down? The answer is yes. When Alabama said, can we. If you can't take this highway through the middle of Birmingham down, can we use federal money to make it a better neighbor highway money, not Birmingham's money. Because if you think Boston doesn't have money, Birmingham does not have money. And so in Birmingham, they took the money and they actually counterintuitively raised the viaduct. They made it a better neighbor by making it so tall that when you're underneath it, you feel like you are in the shade, not under a highway. And in Birmingham, Alabama, for as far as I can tell, eleven and a half months of the year, you want to be in the shade. And so they created this shaded space so that when they then went to the community and said, what would you like in the shade? They were like a children's playground, a pickleball court, a dog park. Like, we would like a lot of things in the shade. Right. In downtown Birmingham. All that got paid for the additional height, got paid for the lighting underneath it so that it was usable day and night, which was designed by the lighting people who designed the high line in New York, got paid for with federal hiring money.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

If you haven't ever seen this, look up the Birmingham citywalk. It's all, like multicolored lighting. It's really interesting.

[Stephanie Pollack]

So it was the state dots that were actually willing to work with communities to explore it. That's what surprised me.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

It's interesting how it is. I mean, if you live in a city, if you live next to a highway, if the highway divided your neighborhood, if it cuts off the waterfront, like, it's really easy to hate the elevated highway. But that vision for what actually replaces the elevated highway seems to be the really elusive part. And when I travel around, you know, in different cities, it can be really divisive, actually, what to do with that space. Is that something you would find yourself in the middle of?

[Stephanie Pollack]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

So as the federal kind of supporter.

[Stephanie Pollack]

And here's the thing, it's going to be a lot of work and money to take that piece of transportation infrastructure away. You got to have something worthwhile in its place. And that's kind of the lesson of the greenway. Right. Like, if we had started earlier, gotten to that consensus, given the money, then there wouldn't have been that period. Right. In 2009 and 10, when people were writing articles.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Urban void, period.

[Stephanie Pollack]

Urban void. Right. Because you would have known what you were going for. You would have figured out how to pay for. For it. You'd be going at it. The good news is you can make up for that. That's Chris's point. Right. Things evolve, consensus gets built, money gets raised. It's gotten better and better. We should be really proud of that. But as a lesson learned for a community that's just wrestling with it, if you could get to those benefits sooner that would be a good thing.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Do either of you have a favorite spot on the Rose Kennedy Greenway? Is there a specific place that maybe is overlooked? There's not the obvious places you go that you especially like. We have a vote for the beer garden in the audience.

[Chris Cook]

Okay. In the north end, there's a tiny plaque in the lawn that acknowledges that back in colonial times, people used to do lawn bowling there. And it's barely noticeable. We have to mow around it. And it's just really exciting. Cause it's easy to miss.

[Stephanie Pollack]

So, Stephanie, I mean, I have to say I'm in love with the big public art wall in Dewey Square and waiting to see what the next painting there. Because again, that was just brilliance on the part of the conservancy. That was supposed to be a building. It's a ventilation building. That's why there's.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

It's a big empty wall.

[Stephanie Pollack]

And turning a ventilation building into this place where you have this changing artwork at a scale where there's not a lot of other places to put it. To me, just, it makes me happy. I mean, the first thing I was asking Chris when we got here this evening was what's going on the wall next?

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

I mean, that is sort of the story of the Rose Kennedy Greenway right there. Right. We thought there was going to be this glass horticultural center, and so there's this barren wall. But now it's the biggest mural in the city of Boston, probably.

[Chris Cook]

And again, there's no barrier to that art. It's just beautiful. It says a lot about our city.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Just to wrap it up, if there was one highway that you could tear down, what would it be?

[Chris Cook]

So I live in Hyde park, and there's a high speed road there that's called American Legion Highway. And there's a group of residents who just want to call it a parkway. They actually aren't even advocating at some points for even changing the lanes because they think that word highway insinuates that you should drive 60 miles per hour through Rosendale and Hyde Park. And I just think that that lends itself to the power that people see in these words. And so if I could not tear it down, if I could rename American Legion Highway, I would do that.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Seems like a pretty reasonable ask.

[Stephanie Pollack]

So I know that not everyone, like no one agrees with this, but the question is not actually what highway you should tear down. Right. It's how to create infrastructure that works better, both as an infrastructure and as a neighbor. And sometimes that means you should tear things down. And sometimes, like in Birmingham, it means you should put things up in the air. And I worry that some people have gotten the lesson of the Big Dig as being if there's a tall thing in between to other things, we should always take it down. And in the case of the Big Dig, we should have. And we did, and I'm grateful that we did. So it's not down or up, it's better or worse, and we should all be striving for better.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

I think that's a great place to leave it. Please give a hand to our guests, Stephanie Pollock.

[Chris Cook]

Thank you.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

Ian and Chris Cook. Thank you so much for coming out.

[Ian Koss]

And that is a wrap on the perhaps poorly named Highway Teardown Tour.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Ian Koss as well)]

If you've been enjoying these episodes and

[Ian Koss]

want more stories about how our government and society actually work on the inside, then I'd suggest you check out the other seasons of our podcast. Season two, Scratch and Win, is all about the world of state run lotteries, and season three, Catching the Codfather, is about the world of commercial fishing and environmental regulation. These are both places where really wonky technical policy stuff meets very dramatic and personal parts of our lives. Many thanks to our partners at the MIT Museum for helping us record this episode, Carol Urbano, Sasha Wallinger, Keelan Caldwell, and David Pino. The Highway Teardown Tour is produced by Fiona Boyd and myself, Ian Koss, with support from Isabel Hibbert. Our editor is Lacey Roberts. The Executive producer is Devin Maverick Robbins. The artwork is by Bill Miller. The Big Dig is a production of GBH News and distributed by prx. I really hope you're enjoying the show, and before I let you go, I just want to drop in with that constant podcaster's reminder to please rate the show. Leave us a review, subscribe, and of course, tell a friend. All that stuff really, really does help us keep the show going. Thank you so much

[Stephanie Pollack]

from Prime.