Duct tape, for all your tunnel needs
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Friday, July 21, 2006 - Updated: 01:24 PM EST
I’m no engineer, but even I know that you don’t attach a 3-ton slab of concrete to the ceiling using glue.
You use duct tape. After all, millions of American fix-it-yourselfers can’t be wrong.
But if you must use glue, go for the name brand: Krazy Glue (not lazy glue). Didn’t anyone involved with the Big Dig remember the commercial with the construction worker dangling safely from an I-beam, his hard hat Krazy-Glued in place? They could have ordered what they needed on Amazon.com for goodness’ sake, and even passed the free-shipping savings on to the taxpayers (for Big Dig officials not familiar with the term, taxpayers are people who work hard for their money and then turn some over to the government to be wasted).
With all due respect to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and Modern Continental Corp. (i.e. none), if there were early concerns about the fastening method, which there were, why didn’t they simply look to the locals for tips on keeping things in place?
And by locals, I don’t mean former Gov. Mike Dukakis, who stepped forward earlier this week to report that he’d urged former Gov. William Weld to keep Frederick P. Salvucci on to run the job (Weld did not). No, I’m talking about the local locals, the in-the-trenches self-luggers and attachers and keep-from-falling-off-ers. The kind who understand that when it comes to moving a mattress, a few borrowed bungee cords are better than a U-Haul rental.
Al Martins, the owner of Al’s Auto Service in Cambridge, sees such attachment savants every day: “They tie stuff to the roof with very thin rope, almost string,” he reported this week. “I’ve seen plywood sheets, I’ve seen chairs and stuff. I’ve seen them use hangers to keep the trunk shut (when the lock’s broken).”
Alas, while many Massachusetts motorists’ ingenuity is to be admired, not all are as safety-conscious as they should be:“Some are stupid,” observes Martins. “You see them driving down the street and they’ve got their hand out the window holding the thing on the roof. It’s not safe. The thing flies off the car and that’s it - goodbye.”
Hey, manual adhesion! Why didn’t Big Dig officials try that? Could be just the “redundant” support system Gov. Romney wants to install. And a full-employment program to boot. Hands up, everybody who wants to drive through the tunnels again.
Watch Beth Teitell on Fox 25 TV’s 5 p.m. newscast every Wednesday.
