MBTA's Project For the Square Displeases CAC

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority and the City still cannot agree on the MBTA's plans for its new Harvard Square station.

Last May, the MBTA announced that it planned to adopt the so-called "Scheme D" for its extension up Massachusetts Avenue. Under this plan, it would build an expanded Harvard Square Station, to be located under the Avenue, parallel to Strauss and Lionel Halls.

On October 25, a Task Force of the Cambridge Advisory Committee asked the MBTA to deepen its tunnel up Mass. Ave. so that an automobile underpass could be built over the tunnel.

At a meeting in City Hall last night, MBTA engineers said it was not technically possible to do this. Instead they proposed to eliminate an underground bus tunnel at the north end of the station. Buses would then load on the surface in Flagstaff Park.

The proposal did not please the CAC. "This is the one opportunity to get those buses underground--they've been a penalty for years in Harvard Square," George A. McLaughlin, general chairman of the CAC, commented.

Members of the CAC suggested that the MBTA consider diverting some of the buses to Porter Square, or redesigning the bus tunnel to permit a parallel automobile underpass. James F. Farr '33, chairman of the CAC Committee on Harvard Square, said they would meet "soon and often" with the MBTA to iron out the difficulties.

Construction of the new Harvard Square station is not scheduled to begin until the spring of 1969. The MBTA estimates it will take 22 to 24 months to complete.