Vaughan H. Totovian, the husband of Lily Tossounian , was a graduate of Watertown High School and Northeastern University, where he completed a degree in civil engineering in Over the next quarter century, Totovian worked on and completed numerous projects that re-made highway and public transportation history in Greater Boston.
His projects included the Big Dig, which submerged the overhead main travel route through Boston into a tunnel; the entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel, which provided a second artery to Logan Airport by extending the Massachusetts Turnpike to East Boston and points north; the Boston Engine terminal in Somerville; commuter rail stations between Canton and Fall River; and the easing of monumental Cape Cod traffic jams from the rotary at Sagamore Bridge.
While civil engineering is a collaborative effort, largely the result of consensus among numerous professionals, Totovian stood out as an ultimate authority because of his technical expertise and a historic memory, said several co-workers. Lochner between and One such breakthrough he authored solved the problem of how to maintain southbound traffic emerging from the Dewey Square tunnel while rebuilding a mile-long stretch of the Expressway.
Vincent Nguyen recalled the time Totovian realized that a planned cement pillar upholding a portion of the Expressway would have been erected in the driveway of a gas station, feet away from its intended location. He had the greatest confidence in his skills. Yet it was his final project, modernizing the rotary at Sagamore Bridge, that gave Totovian the most satisfaction.
With his two brothers, Totovian bought a summer home in Falmouth and was experiencing first-hand the mind-numbing ordeal of getting on and off the Cape on summer weekends. In , he was hired as project lead engineer by a state joint venture to come up with the fix, and by , the work was completed. The rotary that had stalled traffic for generations was discarded, and two highways were able to pass one another on their own roads.
