- Author
-
Federal Highway Administration
- Title
- Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Safety Review of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project Was Comprehensive, But FHWA's Oversight Approach Has Shortcomings.
- Coporate
- Federal Aviation Administration, Atlantic City International Airport, NJ
- Report
-
MH-2010-050,
April 20, 2010,
25 p.
- Keywords
-
tunnels
|
safety
|
concretes
|
ceiling panels
|
death
|
risks
|
evaluation
|
legislation
|
investigations
|
safety factors
|
hazards
|
methodology
|
fire models
|
structural integrity
|
structural failure
- Identifiers
- Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project, July 2006 incident; concrete ceiling panels; "Stem to Stern" safety review of the Boston Metropolitan Highway System; immediate risks to public safety; evaluation of all safety risks; National Transportation Safety Board Reauthorization Act of 2006; CA/T (Central Artery/Tunnel) Project; Ted Williams Tunnel (TWT); WJE'a categories of Reportable conditions; Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (WJE)
- Abstract
- Following the July 2006 incident in Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project-in which concrete ceiling panels fell and killed a motorist-the Commonwealth of Massachusetts initiated an independent "Stem to Stern" safety review of the Boston Metropolitan Highway System, including the CA/T Project. The review, completed in August 2008, was performed in two phases: Phase I identified immediate risks to public safety, while Phase II served as an evaluation of all safety risks. The National Transportation Safety Board Reauthorization Act of 2006 directed the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to provide independent oversight of safety review activities performed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Commonwealth, as they pertained to the CA/T Project. Our broad objective was to assure Congress, the Secretary of Transportation, and the public that the safety review was comprehensive and performed in a rigorous and complete manner. In August 2007, we reported that the Phase I review was generally comprehensive, but that timely and thorough follow-up was necessary to fully address immediate safety risks. For this report, we assessed (1) the Commonwealth's Phase II review including actions taken to address identified safety risks and (2) FHWA's oversight of the Commonwealth's actions to address unresolved safety issues. To conduct our work, we evaluated Phase II safety review activities, including the findings and recommendations of the Phase II safety review report and information FHWA provided on its approach to monitoring the Commonwealth's actions to address unresolved safety risks. To assist us in performing our audit, we contracted with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), which became OIG's subject matter expert for this audit. We conducted this performance audit in accordance with Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objective. Exhibit A provides more details on our scope and methodology.