Governor's Proposal May Defeat Bill to Delay Proposed Underpass

A bill that would have delayed the construction of the Memorial Drive under-passes for several years appears to be heading for a slow death in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

After half a week on the House's calendar without being acted on, the bill (H3554) was returned to the Ways and Means Committee where it apparently will be held up until Gov. Peabody's Mass Transportation Bill is reported out.

Observers then expect H3554 to become lost, and defeated, in the debate surrounding the governor's huge $200 million transit program.

Moratorium on Highway Construction

The bill, which is not specifically aimed at the Memorial Drive underpasses, would place a moratorium on all new highway construction in the Boston area until a "Greater Boston Transportation Agency" had reviewed all the projects and decided how well they fitted into a general scheme for the metropolitan area.

In creating the new agency to plan the city's transportation, the bill conflicts slightly with the governor's proposal, which puts planning in the Department of Public Works. Observers suspect that this small discrepancy might be enough to insure the bill's defeat.

If H3554 is to have a chance of passing at all, proponents feel that it must be brought to the floor alone and not entangled with the governor's program. But Ways and Means chairman John Toomey (D-Cambridge), who is thought to oppose H3554, will probably report the bill simultaneously with the governor's because they both deal with the city's transportation problems.

William P. Homans, Jr. '41, (D-Cambridge), who sponsored the proposal, believes that it would add a needed degree of rationality to transportation planning. It would work well, he thinks, with Gov. Peabody's bill, which proposes the extension of the MTA to create a unified transit network for Boston.

Mem Drive not 'Historic Sito'

In another development in the Memorial Drive controversy, Secretary of Interior Stewart L. Udall has told the Citizens Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive that he cannot declare the roadway a "national historic site." The committee had hoped to win this classification in order to prevent the construction of the underpasses.