I want to thank the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee, chaired by Senator Pacheco, for holding this hearing on the Route 146/MassPike Interchange Construction Project, and for inviting me to testify.
I endorse Senator Moore’s comments on the importance of the project to the Central Massachusetts region, and I applaud the Committee for monitoring the progress of the project to ensure that it is completed by 2007, and hopefully, under budget. As Senator Moore mentioned, the Research Bureau issued an update on the project in May 2003, and discovered that there would be an additional two-year delay from our previous update completed in 2001.