Inner Belt Protest March Fizzles; Council Must Act on Route Tuesday

A protest march against the Inner Belt highway fizzled Saturday.

Only about 60 people made the march down Brookline St.--a road which would be wiped out by one proposed route for the Belt.

When they reached their destination, City Hall in Central Square, a crowd of less than 50 greeted them. The march's organizers had anticipated a turnout of between 200 and 400.

Mrs. Michael Benfield, one of the leaders, blamed apathy and the poor weather for the light turnout. "I'll be a lot of people said to themselves. "They're not going to march today,'" Mrs. Benfield said.

But she also criticized people "who are afraid to fight the government." "We're trying to teach them that they can protest," she said.

The march was intended to protest particularly the Brookline Elm St. route, the path favored by the State Department of Public Works that would uproot between 3000-5000 people.

'This isn't Democracy'

"If a government gets thinking that it can take 5000 people's homes without being questioned, then this isn't democracy in my mind," Mrs. Benfield told the small crowd at City Hall. She nailed a petition to the door asking the City Council to oppose the Brookline Elm St. route and recommended another location for the highway. Only one of the nine councillors, Walter J. Sullivan, made the march.

The Council mets today with only one day left to make a recommendation. The DPW gave Cambridge until March 1 to present a specific alternative to the Brookline-Elm St. route.

Other Locations

Two other possible locations for the highway have been proposed. The first would follow railroad tracks in East Cambridge and probably destroy a number of M.L.T. laboratories near the tracks. The second, a few blocks to the West, would follow Portland and Albany Streets. This alignment has been endorsed by the Cambridge Committee on the Inner Belt, a group of private planners.