The northbound of Boston's I93 highway, the tunnel that goes under Boston downtown, connecting to the Lenny Zakim Bridge, opened to the public Saturday night. I decided to try it out on Sunday afternoon when the traffic is light(er)... I started into I93N from the south end Mass Ave on ramp (which is not really on Mass Ave...). The entrance into the tunnel is a three lane entrance. The tunnel is clean (duh) and bright. Several LED signs spanning the lanes overhead display different type of information -- "Welcome to the new I93N", "Storrow drive exit this way >>>>", etc. Lighting is good. Somehow the tunnel is not straight, but curving right then left, pressumably following the old 93 outline, (not sure why that has to be the case)? There is an entrance merging from the left, then right. If you are planning to go through the tunnel without taking either of the exits inside the tunnel, you should enter on the middle or the left lane. The rightmost lane stayed rightmost for a little while, a right entrance started a new lane on the right, temporary giving us four lanes in the tunnel, then dropped off. So the original right most lane turned into an exit only lane for the exit in the tunnel. You would have to merge left.
The bridge is prettier still driving on it, after seeing it every morning driving pass it on I93S. It is not very long. It's over in a minute, and that's because traffic was slow through the tunnel and on the bridge, going 15 miles an hour as oppose to the posted 45 to 35. I assume people are just driving slowly checking out the new road.
One bad thing (I am getting picky now) about the tunnel -- the tunnel has light strips on left and right edge on the celling. So two stream of bright white continuous line of light panels go the entire length of the tunnel, very pretty. But, the ceiling changes height a little at several places, and they somehow cannot make the lighting strip smoothly track the ceiling height changes. So the beautiful line of lights has several ugly vertical kinks in them, spoiling otherwise a very pretty sight.