{"id":78321,"date":"2016-08-29T03:59:33","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T09:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wend.ca\/?p=78321"},"modified":"2020-04-14T16:21:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T20:21:17","slug":"why-bostons-tunnels-are-tiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/?p=78321","title":{"rendered":"Why Boston&#8217;s tunnels are tiled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If heading downtown, Boston&#8217;s tunnels are one of the first things you see when you arrive in the city. The Ted Williams Tunnel (1995) is a toll tunnel that runs under the Boston Harbour to make the journey into the core fast. The whole trip from the airport to downtown takes roughly 10-minutes, which is two minutes slower than a water taxi, which takes 8-minutes.  <\/p>\n<p>I know that people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/metro\/2012\/05\/05\/boston-tunnels-have-turned-into-big-ugly\/caPH8s90zrEBkkTMPoX77J\/story.html\">constantly complain about the subway-tiled tunnels<\/a>. But, there&#8217;s something about them that I really love. White tiles are not something you see often on the West Coast; they&#8217;re a phenomenon specific to the Eastern seaboard.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wend.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sm-2016-08-28-21.14.00.jpg\" alt=\"sm-2016-08-28 21.14.00\" width=\"600\" height=\"426\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-78323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wend.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sm-2016-08-28-21.14.00.jpg 600w, https:\/\/wend.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sm-2016-08-28-21.14.00-595x422.jpg 595w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It was my cab driver who told me why the tunnels are tiled. &#8220;They&#8217;re easy to clean,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Every three months the city sends through power washing trucks that scrub the tiles until they&#8217;re pristine and white.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Cars mean exhaust. Exhaust means black gunk on the walls. Porcelain doesn&#8217;t allow dirt or grime to sink in so it&#8217;s really easy to scrub off. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d love to watch these trucks run through the tunnels. There&#8217;s something strangely satisfying about seeing tiles get scrubbed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nIf heading downtown, Boston&#8217;s tunnels are one of the first things you&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wend.ca\/?p=78321\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Why Boston&#8217;s tunnels are tiled&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443,441,34],"tags":[747,468],"class_list":["post-78321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boston","category-massachusetts","category-us","tag-cab-drivers","tag-life-on-the-road","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78321"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91950,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78321\/revisions\/91950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}