The storied history of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project or the Big Dig, as it is now known, began in the early 1950s. Even then Massachusetts had a transportation problem. However, unlike most other states in the union, Massachusetts also had a history of funding its own infrastructure before the establishment of the federal interstate system under Dwight Eisenhower in the late-1950s. This system would show many states, most notably those in the Midwest, through a dramatically productive period of highway construction and expansion, yet Massachusetts had begun its projects too early to benefit from the arrival of the interstate program.
The elevated Central Artery/Inner Belt system had begun construction in 1950 and by the time the interstate system began to flourish, the highway was essentially completed, albeit without the Inner Belt component. In this state the elevated highway comfortably carried 75,000 vehicles daily, yet was burdened by the myriad off-ramp access points checkering the road’s downtown section. This was the very problem the Inner Belt was designed to solve as it would have run around downtown Boston to the west (through the South End and the Back Bay, across the Charles River to Cambridge and then finally to Charlestown where it would rejoin the downtown highway) carrying through-traffic and avoiding the city‘s center. The fight over the construction of the Inner Belt aspect of the project would continue to be a contentious one in the coming decades.
As the debate over whether to build the Inner Belt continued into the early 1970s, a concurrent battle arose in the city concerning the proposed expansion of Logan Airport into parts of East Boston. East Boston Residents were discontent with the plan and began to protest the addition of a new runway, #14/32, which would result in increased noise pollution and air traffic in their neighborhoods. All of these contentious political strands came together in 1974, just as Governor Michael Dukakis was beginning his first of two terms in office.
He was faced with two constituencies who ardently objected to both the construction of the Inner Belt and the expansion of the airport. Having been a leader of community opposition and activism before becoming governor, Dukakis inevitably sided with the opposition on both accounts. He became the driving force behind a diverse group of community activists, environmentalists, and East Bostonians, all of whom opposed the two projects, and the Inner Belt idea lay dead in its tracks.
With the Inner Belt option rejected, a plan arose to convert the federal interstate dollars that were to be allocated for the Inner Belt construction into transit funds. These funds than could be used primarily for the relocation of the Orange Line on the planned Inner Belt right-of-way and secondarily for a number of projects including the proposed Red Line expansion.
Around the same time the Inner Belt option was being discarded, a new roadway problem arose on the Boston landscape. The traffic problems between Logan and downtown were becoming unbearable. The Callahan and Sumner tunnels were carrying too heavy a vehicle load and calls were being made to build a third harbor tunnel through East Boston to alleviate some of the burden. As with the Inner Belt and the airport expansion, Dukakis was an opponent of such a plan, citing that Boston already had a third harbor tunnel in the form of the Blue Line. This issue would later return to the forefront in the form of a proposal to place the third harbor tunnel through South Boston, a plan that would later come to fruition with the construction of the Ted Williams Tunnel.
However, that day was still far in the future and furthermore the tunnel plan was soon to be trumped by another even larger project that would dramatically impact the city for years to come. Although the Inner Belt option had been discarded, the problems it was introduced to resolve still existed. Calls for action arose from the Secretary of Transportation, Fred Salvucci, who wanted to find a way to jointly solve the city’s transportation problems and the discontinuous nature of its neighborhoods.
This new idea, deemed the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, was proposed as a solution that would fulfill Salvucci’s dual goals. The project would replace the existing surface roadways with a subterraneous tunnel system, which would function both to alleviate traffic congestion and reconnect the city with its waterfront. After the project lay virtually ignored for the four years of Ed King’s term, it gained new life as Dukakis reentered office in 1982.
However, just as the project was beginning to become more than just the pipe dream of a few state and city officials, the federal government was beginning to hear calls for it to disband the interstate program that had been so successful in building the nation’s roadways. This movement toward a reduced role of the federal government in funding highway projects combined with a decreased need for construction dollars from most states whose highway work had been completed decades before.
As these forces coalesced, Massachusetts was faced with a short time table by which to get the necessary reports completed in order to be eligible for federal funding for the Artery. The state was given nine months to produce an environmental impact report for the project or it would lose its shot at interstate funds. Salvucci and others worked diligently to galvanize city and state officials to lobby congress for support of the Artery plan and helped bring together community leaders, union labor support, and environmentalists to voice their approval.
Concurrent with this state-wide push for federal support of the project, the Massachusetts congressional contingent, consisting of Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, Representative Joseph Moakley, and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil, was working hard for the project’s approval. These movements came to a head in 1987 when Ronald Reagan vetoed the Transportation Authority Bill which would have given the Artery funding and the veto returned to Congress where it was put to an override vote.
The first override vote found the bill passed over Reagan’s veto in the House, yet, when it was narrowly defeated by a single vote in the Senate, the project seemed doomed. However, the next day, the override was put to a revote and surprisingly the bill passed as one Senator reversed his previously unsupportive position. The project now had achieved financial viability and the process of its implementation began.
NB: FutureBoston.org neither endorses nor guarantees the historical accuracy of "Recollections" columns. All facts and opinions expressed here are taken from informal interviews.
Interview: June 12, 2000 | Last Updated: June 29, 2000
