Yes, to an extent. But it beat the hell out of the alternative. I remember driving on the old elevated highway and it could be a nightmare even when it wasn’t rush hour.

A lot of the Big Dig project honestly wasn’t that bad, as a good percentage of it was done either without needing detours or with well planned detours. The worst part IMHO was the relatively short period where they started shifting traffic to the new roads. There were periods of days/weeks where a 4 lane highway would have to squeeze down to two or even one lane. Or you would suddenly find one day that a side street simply no longer existed or an exit ramp one day led you somewhere completely different.

But what Boston has now is vastly superior to that old elevated monstrosity, so in the end it was definitely worth the hassle.