Central Artery in the context of "Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge"

The Big Dig was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the elevated Central Artery of Interstate 93 into the O'Neill Tunnel and built the Ted Williams Tunnel to extend Interstate 90 to Logan International Airport. Those two projects were the origin of the official name, the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project). The megaproject constructed the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge over the Charles River, created the Rose Kennedy Greenway in the space vacated by the previous elevated roadway and funded more than a dozen projects to improve the region's public transportation system. Planning began in 1982 and construction was carried out between 1991 and 2006. The project concluded in December 2007.

The project's general contractor was Bechtel, with Parsons Brinckerhoff as the engineers, who worked as a consortium, both overseen by the Massachusetts Highway Department. The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the United States, and was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, accusations of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal charges and arrests, and the death of one motorist.

The West Side Elevated Highway (West Side Highway or Miller Highway, named for Julius Miller, Manhattan borough president from 1922 to 1930) was an elevated section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A) running along the Hudson River in the New York City borough of Manhattan to the tip of the island. It was an elevated highway, one of the first urban freeways in the world, and served as a prototype for urban freeways elsewhere, including Boston's Central Artery.

Built between 1929 and 1951, the highway had narrow confines—which could not accommodate trucks—and sharp S exit ramps that made it obsolete almost immediately. Maintenance was minimal, and the use of corrosive salts to de-ice the highway in winter accelerated its decay. When chunks of its facade began to fall off due to lack of maintenance, and a truck and car fell through it at 14th Street in 1973, the highway was shut down, and a debate began over whether to renovate it or dismantle it. Attitudes to urban planning had changed in the intervening decades, and the decision was made not to repair the decaying structure.

Interstate 93 (I-93) is an Interstate Highway in the New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the United States. Spanning approximately 190 miles (310 km) along a north–south axis, it is one of three primary Interstate Highways located entirely within New England; the other two are I-89 and I-91. The largest cities along the route are Boston, and Manchester, New Hampshire; it also travels through the New Hampshire state capital of Concord.

I-93 begins at an interchange with I-95, US Route 1 (US 1) and Route 128 in Canton, Massachusetts. It travels concurrently with US 1 beginning in Canton, and, with Route 3 beginning at the Braintree Split on the Braintree–Quincy city line, through the Central Artery in Downtown Boston before each route splits off beyond the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge. The portion of highway between the Braintree Split and the Central Artery is named the "Southeast Expressway", while the portion from Boston to the New Hampshire state line is named the "Northern Expressway".

The Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. Tunnel (colloquially O'Neill Tunnel) is a highway tunnel built as part of the Big Dig in Boston, Massachusetts. It carries the Central Artery underneath downtown Boston, and is numbered as Interstate 93 (I-93), U.S. Route 1 (US 1), and Route 3. It roughly follows the route of the old elevated Central Artery, though the northbound entrance, at the corner of Kneeland Street and Atlantic Avenue, is somewhat east of the southbound exit (at Kneeland and Albany streets) to allow for a reconfigured interchange with the Massachusetts Turnpike. It runs from the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge at its north portal—barely 165 feet (50 m) east of the TD Garden sports facility's eastern corner—to Boston's Chinatown at its south portal. The tunnel is named for Tip O'Neill, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, whose constituency included several of the surrounding communities in Metro Boston.

The Massachusetts Turnpike (colloquially the "Mass Pike" or "the Pike") is a controlled-access toll road that runs concurrently with Interstate 90 (I-90) in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is the longest Interstate Highway in Massachusetts, spanning 138 miles (222 km) along an east–west axis.

The turnpike opened in 1957, and it was designated as part of the Interstate Highway System in 1959. It begins at the New York state line in West Stockbridge, linking with the Berkshire Connector portion of the New York State Thruway. The original western terminus of the turnpike was located at Route 102 in West Stockbridge before I-90 had been completed in New York state. The turnpike intersects with several Interstate Highways as it traverses the state, including I-91 in West Springfield; I-291 in Chicopee; I-84 in Sturbridge; the junction of I-290 and I-395 in Auburn; and I-495 in Hopkinton. The eastern terminus of the turnpike was originally at Route 128 (now cosigned with I-95) in Weston, and has been extended several times: to Allston in 1964, to the Central Artery (at the time designated as I-95/Route 3; currently designated as I-93/US 1/Route 3) in Downtown Boston in 1965, and to Route 1A in East Boston as a route to Logan International Airport in 2003 as part of the "Big Dig" megaproject. I-190 and I-290 are the two auxiliary Interstate Highways that serve the route.

The Rose Kennedy Greenway is a linear park located in several Downtown Boston neighborhoods. It consists of landscaped gardens, promenades, plazas, fountains, art, and specialty lighting systems that stretch over one mile through Chinatown, the Financial District, the Waterfront, and North End neighborhoods. Officially opened in October 2008, the 17-acre Greenway sits on land created from demolition of the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway as part of the Big Dig project.

The Rose Kennedy Greenway is named after Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the matriarch of the Kennedy family who was born in the neighboring North End neighborhood, the daughter of the former Boston mayor for whom the demolished expressway was named. Her son, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, played an important role in establishing the Greenway.