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Critical History of Transit Planning and Decisionmaking Although the principal focus of this case assess- was to be a series of major expressway facilities ment is transit planning, Boston’s recent transit within Route 128, including the Inner Belt (Route planning history can be understood only in the 695), a third harbor tunnel, the final extensions of context of all the transportation planning for both State Route 2 and Route 1-93, and construction of highway and transit in the Boston area. Serious Route 1-95 from Route 128 in the south, through interest in making improvements to the transit downtown Boston and the new harbor tunnel, to system grew primarily in response to community Route 128 in the north. opposition to proposed expressway projects. The The Inner Belt—seen as the keystone of the following discussion is organized around three entire expresswa system—was to be the last of the major phases of the planning and decisionmaking y three circumferential expressways serving Boston. process: (1) the period of highway planning and the It was to have encircled downtown Boston, passing citizen reaction to it that culminated in the 1970 through the Back Bay/Fenway institutional com- moratorium on highway construction; (2) the plex, crossing the Charles River, and continuing period of study called the Boston Transportation through Cambridge and Somerville. Planning Review (BTPR) during which transit issues came into focus; and (3) steps toward This expressway system, which was rooted in the implementing the BTPR transit proposals in the 1948 Master Highway Plan, was revised and expanded period since 1972. The historical narrative is by the 1968 Recommended Highway and Transit Plan, a intended to provide a framework for the dis- multiyear, $2 billion highway and transit construc- cussions that follow of the institutional context and tion program affecting 152 of the State’s 351 technical work, in which particular emphasis is communities. The 1968 plan was a product of the placed on BTPR and its aftermath. The history is Eastern Massachusetts Regional Planning Project summarized in a chronological listing that follows (EMRPP). EMRPP was begun in 1962 as a joint this section. undertaking of the Massachusetts Bay Transporta- tion Authority (MBTA), the State Department of Public Works (DPW), the Metropolitan Area DECISION TO REEVALUATE Planning Council (MAPC), and the Department of HIGHWAY PLANS: Commerce and Development. THE MORATORIUM Although the 1968 EMRPP plan did include a number of transit extensions and other im- In the late 1960’s transportation issues in Boston provements, it was clear that only the highway centered around highway projects proposed during program was assured of the necessary local and several decades of planning. Controversy arose as Federal funding resources required for construc- citizens and elected officials within Route 128 tion. Through State constitutional limitations on began to realize the extent of residential and open the use of gas tax revenues, s the highway program space displacement that would necessarily accom- enjoyed a ready and growing source of local pany expressway construction. The pressure matching funds. At the Federal level, the highway increased until Governor Francis Sargent placed a program was generously funded and, for interstate moratorium on highway planning and construction facilities, required only a 10 percent local matching in February 1970. share. Beginning in 1948 the State, through the By contrast, transit construction projects re- Department of Public Works, engaged in a growing quired specific bonding authorization on a project- highway construction program that secured widespread support among the State’s business and s In 1974, voters removed this 1 i mi ta t ion i n a statewide industrial leaders. The culmination of this program referendum. 11 \ ti D1 o N 7 0 . 0 by-project basis, and the provision of bonding The highway opponents also found support in authority required a two-thirds affirmative vote on Boston’s City Hall, where liberal Mayor Kevin the part of the State legislature. Since many White had replaced former Mayor John Collins in legislators resided in areas of the State that would 1967. During his 8-year term, Collins alined closely not directly benefit from MBTA projects, and since with the Chamber of Commerce and other groups the State normally assisted MBTA in defraying that favored highway construction and had spoken debt service related to capital construction projects, out for the expressway system. Mayor White’s this legislative support was often difficult to obtain. political base, which was organized around Similarly, at the Federal level, little money was neighborhood interests, made his administration being made available for extensive transit improve- sensitive to the growing concern over displacement ment projects. and disruption. b In fact, several of White’s “Little City Hall” administrators were in the forefront of In this context popular concern over potentially the antihighway (and antiairport expansion) destructive side-effects of highway construction transportation struggles. Mayor White eventually began to grow. By February 1968, Cambridge and withdrew the city’s support of the South End Boston had been successful undemanding a restudy Bypass, a city-sponsored project that was essential of the Inner Belt. Federal Highway Administrator to the efficient operation of the proposed Lowell Bridwell committed the Bureau of Public Southwest Expressway (1-95). Roads to two new studies, one to review the need for the road and the other to develop roadway Thus, by 1969, the stage was set for a complete design solutions that attempted to minimize reassessment of the State’s transportation policies anticipated adverse effects of the facility. for the Boston area. Toward the end of the year, Governor Sargent appointed a task force, chaired However, the Inner Belt was but one proposed by Professor Alan Altshuler of MIT, to study the element of the planned system. Encouraged by the State’s transportation planning and decision- Inner Belt restudy but apprehensive that the new making process. Mayor White, other politicians, studies would turn out to be “whitewash,” local and spokespersons on the antihighways side strong- action groups continued to develop closer alliances ly criticized the Governor for taking a middle and to organize protest rallies and demonstrations. course, and within weeks the task force’s brief but Eventually, the Greater Boston Committee on the sharply critical interim report to the Governor Transportation Crisis (GBC) was organized in paved the way for the announcement of a general 1968-69, and served as an umbrella organization highway planning and construction moratorium in that began to wield considerable political clout. February 1970. T Sargent suspended property In 1969, Governor John Volpe resigned to acquisition in the proposed expressway rights-of- become Secretary of the U.S. Department of way and canceled the remaining portions of the Transportation. Governor Volpe, who had former- Inner Belt design study. He proposed a larger ly served as Commissioner of Public Works and had “rest udy,” which became the Boston Transporta- taken a strong stand in favor of highway construc- tion Planning Review (BTPR), to determine tion, was succeeded by Francis Sargent, also a whether the new roads should be built, as well as former DPW Commissioner, who in the 1960’s had where and how. approved the very expressway system that was now being called into question. DECISION TO RECOMMEND However, Governor Sargent also had served TRANSIT IMPROVEMENTS: previousl as Commissioner of the Department of y THE BTPR Natural Resources. Continuing his strong interest in environmental matters, Sargent became con- cerned over the potential environmental degrada- Despite the long history of transportation- tion that could result from highway construction. related controversy, transit issues played a relative- Sargent and his policy advisors began to give ly limited role in the Governor’s moratorium favorable hearing to the antihighway forces. Atone critical point in August 1969, Sargent refused to b Displacement was a real concern, not a potential threat; DPW had begun land acquisition and clearance in several allow an immediate transfer to DPW of certain expressway corridors. State-owned parkland in the Fowl Meadow that 7 The moratorium was not applied to 1-93, which was by then was essential for the construction of Route 1-9s. well into construction. 14 -- Highway construction issues dominated Boston’s most significant recent transportation planning program, the Boston Transportation Planning Review decision. The political issue was highway cost estimates for the 1966 plan based on construction—and more importantly, the en- preliminary engineering work and inflation factors. vironmental and community impacts associated However, the MBTA plan did not figure with highway construction. Transportation policy, prominently in the events of the following year. A as such, was not widely debated by the participants number of loosely related factors account for this. in the controversy, and there was little discussion First, highways presented an immediate, of transportation quality or service needs. recognizable threat around which political action Transit proposals had surfaced during the 1960’s could be organized. Boston already had an es- but drew little public attention. The Eastern tablished core transit system, and the highway Massachusetts

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