Transportation is the backbone of the private-sector economy.

And Washington state faces some big and tough decisions about transportation in the years to come, including how to pay for a reworked or removed Alaskan Way Viaduct and how to rehabilitate the aging State Route 520 bridge. Besides the much-needed investments in safety, the region needs to craft a plan to efficiently move increasingly traffic-addled workers to and from work.

As political and business leaders, and the public debate our transportation needs, they would do well to read this lucid account of The Big Dig, Massachusetts's three-decade-long quest to bury and expand the Central Artery, Boston's major interstate highway, and bore a new underwater tunnel to Logan Airport.

It offers lessons in attacking seemingly intractable infrastructure problems. It also shows success is attainable. Here's an excerpt:

"The wrong lesson to take from the Big Dig is that other states shouldn?t bother with ambitious infrastructure. While the Big Dig?s real worth will be measured in decades, its impact so far, three years after workers dismantled the Central Artery, shows its value.

"Travel time through downtown at afternoon rush hour is down from nearly 20 minutes to less than three, consistent with pre-construction estimates. Elsewhere on the underground highways, travel times are between one-quarter and two-thirds shorter; average speeds in some sections have shot from ten miles per hour to 43 (speed, rather than drivers? veering toward too many exits in slow traffic, is the tunnels? biggest safety problem).

"Airport trips are between one-half and three-quarters shorter. A 62 percent drop in hours spent on the new roads saves nearly $200 million annually in time and fuel."