Tunnel crash snarls I-93
Tractor-trailer slams into ceiling of O’Neill
A tractor-trailer that slammed into the top of the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel early yesterday morning snarled traffic from Boston’s northern suburbs. The truck, owned by Snap Trucking Fleet of Iroquois, Ontario, was headed southbound on Interstate 93 in Boston when it entered the tunnel after 5:30 a.m. The top of the truck, carrying a piece of filtration equipment, scraped the ceiling just before exit 20, Massachusetts Department of Transportation officials and state police said. The driver, a 59-year-old Ontario man, was cited for an overheight and overwidth vehicle, state police said. The incident is being investigated. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation inspected the tunnel ceiling and found “no major damage,” MassDOT said in a statement. All lanes reopened by 8:20 a.m. but the crash caused traffic to slow. To alleviate the traffic on I-93 southbound, crews moved the debris from the crash onto another nearby ramp, which meant that the I-93 southbound ramp from Lincoln and Essex streets was closed until about 9:30 a.m. yesterday. Gov. Charlie Baker said he was relieved no one was hurt during the incident. “I think the most important thing to remember here is that nobody got hurt,” Baker said. “Clearly that truck did not belong in the tunnel and the accident that it created could have injured people, maybe even severely. No one was hurt. “I get the fact that it created an enormous tangle for everybody associated with their commute stretched way up onto the North Shore. I live on the North Shore so I was one of the people that was affected by that,” Baker added. “I think the most important thing is, it shouldn’t have been there. There are a ton of signs posted that would have made clear that that vehicle shouldn’t have been in the tunnel, but that aside, you know, thankfully nobody got hurt.”