The Inner Belt: Extra Innings

It is less than a month to election time in Massachusetts, and the political tempo is accelerating. Last week, the pressure of politics had one very obvious effect: Gov. John A. Volpe abandoned his administration's long-standing, but unpopular, position favoring the Brook-line-Elm St. route for the Inner Belt through Cambridge. Volpe pledged he would "start from scratch" in selecting a path for the highway.

In plain language, Volpe's announcement means one one of two things is going to happen. After the election, his administration is going to wait some convenient length of time (perhaps as long as several months) and then simply announce that Brookline-Elm is still the best choice. Or--and this is what opponents of Brookline-Elm obviously want--he is going to make a complete reversal and choose the Portland-Albany St. route.

For Cambridge, both routes will be costly. Brookline-Elm displaces from 1200 to 1500 families, claims 2300 jobs and runs straight through Central Square. The Portland-Albany route would eliminate, at a minimum, the same number of jobs and uproot about 150 families. Moreover, it would run through and industrial area near M.I.T. which promises to attract a considerable amount of future research and defense industry. Given these relative costs, however, the Portland-Albany route seems the lesser of two evils.

Will John Volpe consider the choice seriously? The question hinges on the powers that oppose a change. The firms that would lose if Portland-Albany were selected will be in there fighting, but the influence of M.I.T. will weigh just as heavily against a route along the edge of its campus.

The Institute's stake in the land to its west is significant. It probably will expand there and has been encouraging scientific and engineering firms to move into the area. But these goals, though disrupted by an eight-lane highway, are still not entirely thwarted. An M.I.T. that encourages a well-designed depressed highway through the City could do a great deal to ease the Inner Belt's impact on Cambridge, and minimize the damage to the Institute's own plans as well.

Even so, M.I.T. seems set against the Portland-Albany route, and has the ability to oppose it effectively. The Institute's power derives from a variety of factors: its prestige, the enormous amount of federal research it conducts (thus giving it influence in Washington where approval for the highway must be sought), and the bargaining skill and reputation of James R. Killian, chairman of the M.I.T. Corporation.

M.I.T. is unlikely to change its stand, and the danger is that its protests will count more strongly with the Governor than they merit. Volpe's decision on the Belt will be, as it has always been, extraordinarily difficult. But if he is reelected in November, he should use the power of his office to give Cambridge the route that, in the long run, will destroy the least: Portland-Albany.