PROACTIVE CONSTRUCTION NOISE CONTROL POLICIES DEVELOPED FOR THE CENTRAL ARTERY/TUNNEL PROJECT’S C17A6 CONTRACT

摘要

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (The Big Dig) in Boston is the most ambitious urban construction project ever undertaken in the United States. One of the most politically-charged challenges that the project has had to successfully manage involves noise. Fortunately, lessons learned through almost 10 years of construction to date served well towards developing proactive noise mitigation policies for the project=s final remaining contract [1]. The C17A6 contract will finish about 2 miles of tunnels and surface roadways through downtown Boston, and will demolish and remove the existing elevated I-93 Artery. In preparation, project staff met as early as 1998 with design and environmental engineers, as well as community and City representatives in order to devise mutually acceptable policies towards mitigating C17A6-related noise. Comprehensive noise prediction studies were performed, candidate noise control options were developed, and costs were considered. Eventually, a series of noise mitigation measures, totaling about $3 million, were approved for inclusion in the C17A6 contract. These measures included equipment restrictions at night, noise barriers and curtain systems, acoustical window treatments, prohibition of backup alarms at night, and continued oversight with dedicated noise technicians. With these measures committed to the public, the C17A6 contract went out to bid in April 2001 at an estimated price of $440 million.