Council to Hold Special Session On 'Belt' Tactics

The Cambridge City Council will meet on Friday to decide whether salvation from the Inner Belt lies on Memorial Drive or 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The councillors will debate two separate proposals tabled from yesterday's regular meeting -- one for a study of Memorial Drive's possibilities as an alternate Belt route, the other for an all-out Washington campaign against any Inner Belt at all in Cambridge.

Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci made the proposal yesterday to hire engineering consultants for a study of a Memorial Drive route. He insisted that the City be prepared with a new alternate route if a current federal study of the highway eventually supports the state Department of Public Works' selection of Brookline-Elm St.

Vellucci claimed that a Memorial Drive route would not displace any families, and only some M.I.T. property, gas stations, and landscaping along the drive.

Councillor Edward A. Crane '35 sharply criticized Vellucci's proposal. "We would just be pouring good money down the drain after other good money," Crane told the Council. "The emphasis should now be on blocking all Belt routes."

Crane suggested that the Council work through Rep. Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. (D-Camb.) and the Massachusetts Senators to get the federal government -- which will pay 90 per cent of the highway's costs -- to abandon a Cambridge link. He called for an appeal to President Johnson if it proved necessary.

In a separate move, the Council requested officials of the new Cambridge Corporation to appear at the regular meeting on April 11.