The Public Weal

The history of the Boston toll road-freeway controversy has been one of sudden compromise, of veiled threats, and of panic in the face of a clock that is running down. In the first stage it centered around newly-elected governor John A. Volpe, around William F. Callahan, chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and around the $200 million Prudential Center at Huntington Avenue and Boylston Street. In the second the principal actor was Mayor Donald L. Gibbs of Newton.

When Volpe took office, the Legislature had long before authorized blueprints for a toll road, financed by a Turnpike Authority bond issue, connecting Rte. 128 and downtown Boston via the tracks of the Boston and Albany Railroad. The Authority, i.e., Callahan (who controls the bond issue), had already procured an option on the right of way. Although this plan and contracts connected with it had been gathering dust for close to five years, $20 million worth of work had gone forward on the Prudential Center, under which the expressway was expected to pass.

In late January, Volpe proposed an alternate route (a freeway west of the B & A) and almost threw a bomb into Callahan's works. If the expressway were to follow the Volpe route, it would not pass under the Center. Since any change at all in the expressway plans would have drawn a considerable amount of Prudential blood, the company's executives laid down an ultimatum. They did not care what kind of road (viz. free or toll) went through, so long as it went underneath the Center. Without a clarifying decision from the Supreme Judicial Court before its summer recess, they would kill the Back Bay project; no tickoes, no washes.

In one of his first power plays as governor, Volpe demanded a freeway because "our motorists and our economy demand immediate action." But, in a sudden "compromise" with Callahan on February 4, Volpe agreed to a toll road down the B & A. Said he: "At this time it was a choice between a freeway and the Prudential Center. In view of the importance of the Center, I cannot in good conscience stand in its way."

After the Callahan-Volpe pact, attention shifted to Mayor Gibbs of Newton, who had been an opponent of the toll road since its inception. Although reconciled to the need for a link between the Massachusetts Pike and Boston, Gibbs championed a freeway that would edge Waltham and Watertown, that would go down along the banks of the Charles River and thereby reduce large tax losses that might result from the demolition of industrial and residential property in Newton.

When Gibbs saw that the fate of the Prudential depended on a road down the B & A, and that the Callahan-Volpe deal ensured a toll road, he agreed to compromise. In return for certain changes in the route from Weston to a point in Watertown near the Perkins School for the Blind, he would withdraw his objections and certain litigation proceedings that he had initiated with the Interstate Commerce Commission. He maintained that there was no reason why a new route from Perkins to 128 could not be considered, a route that would not interfere with the Prudential and might reduce the waste of the original path of the road through Newton.

Statesmen for the Authority have emphasized that it is impossible to institute the changes that Gibbs demands. The route, product of "years of study and thousands of hours quizzing motorists," has been created for demonstrated needs. Any change at all, said the Callahan forces, will threaten the Prudential project, which represents about 50,000 jobs.

The Callahan forces, including Boston labor leaders, have thus vilified Gibbs as a man about to sabotage bread, business, and beauty in Boston. Senate President Powers has threatened to increase Newton's share of the MTA and MDC expense. But old Gibbs has an ace in the hole for the so-called "final" meeting time, Monday. If he waits long enough, he may panic the opposition into granting his concessions. If not, there hasn't been a good house bombing in Newton for years.