BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) -- New safety concerns in the Big Dig tunnels could cause months of repairs.
Inspectors have found nearly 1,000 cracked or worn nuts and bolts on lights in the tunnels. Engineers are now inspecting every light fixture in the 93 tunnels and the Mass Pike Connector. The nuts inside the tunnel haven't been changed since they were built in more than 20 years ago.
"It is very scary! There's nothing you can do!" said Yvette McClaren, who drives in the Big Dig tunnel system every day.
Despite commuter concerns, officials say they are not worried anything will fall, as the light fixtures are also held up by wiring.
"If we felt for a second anything was going to become dislodged, we would close the tunnel," said Thomas Tinlin with MASS DOT.
Workers inspect the tunnel systems every six months, and it was during a routine inspection last month, when a worker found a cracked nut in the Ted Williams Tunnel.
To date, workers have inspected 70 percent of the 30,000 nuts in the tunnel and so far, 878 have been flagged for replacement. In the I-90 and I-93 tunnels, workers have inspected 14 percent of the nuts and flagged 49 of them.
McClaren said despite MASS DOT's reassurance this isn't a safety issue, she's not convinced.
"It's the same thing with the Big Dig over and over again. it's a never ending story!" she said.
In 2006, a woman was killed after a massive ceiling tile fell on her car in the I-90 connector. Then in 2007, a light fixture fell in the Tip O'Neill Tunnel. Nobody was hurt, but it was weeks before state officials went public with this incident.
Tinlin said while he understands the public's frustrations, he wants people to know this time it's different.
The repairs could take six months and will cause a few lane closures, but not a full shutdown.
Officials expect to finish the inspections by the end of November. The price tag is not known yet.
Cox Media Group
