The Inner Belt

TWO YEARS AGO Massachusetts Governor John A. Volpe, in the midst of a re-election campaign, made one of the few decisions that has ever won the ex-contractor any acclaim in Cambridge. Vope ordered a re-examination of the route which Cambridge's eight-lane nemesis, the Inner Belt highway, would take through the City.

Though some of the 1200-odd families living along Brookline and Elm Streets--the previously-chosen route of the Belt--cast their votes for Volpe in gratitude, an undercurrent of cynicism about the study never left the City. The state Department of Public Works, which had firmly supported Brookline-Elm, was controlling the study. And Volpe himself, a longtime Belt-booster, had little interest in a new study beyond the votes it would yield.

The cynics were right. In the spring of 1967, as soon as Volpe was comfortably settled for a new term, the DPW announced that, after due consideration, it had decided Brookline-Elm was indeed the best route.

Cambridge then carried its fight against the Belt to Washington, finding a more sympathetic hearing there than in the Commonwealth. Cambridge exerted intense pressure for another study of the Belt, and the Federal Bureau of Public Roads, in the midst of Johnsonian budget cutting, probably didn't want to spend the money for the road immediately, so the BPR found it highly advantageous to lend a kindly ear to Cambridge's plea.

Perhaps more important, Lowell K. Bridwell, the new Federal Highway Commissioner, was beginning to take another look at how the U.S. Government builds its roads, to see if some medicine could be found to heal the social scars they left on communities. Cambridge, which had protested long and loud about the dire effects of the Belt, was an ideal place to try a new approach. So Bridwell last February held up final approval of the Belt, pending a new, two year study of the road.

DIVIDED into two parts, the study would first determine whether an Inner Belt, as planned in 1948, is needed at all, and at the same time--after assuming that the Belt was needed--try to find out how to minimize its undesirable impacts on housing, employment, etc., in the communities through which it passes. Since Bridwell's decision, the DPW, the BPR, and the four communities along the Belt--Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, and Brookline--have been fighting an obscure but important battle over just what the study--as vaguely outlined by Bridwell--should include.

During the squabble, Cambridge has tried to widen the purview of both parts of the study, and to assure that it--unlike the 1966-67 examination--will not be done by DPW-handpicked consultants. If successful, the City's strategy could produce a study recommending ways to ease the pain the Inner Belt would bring to Cambridge. The DPW appears to have given ground only grudgingly, attempting to assure that, once again, its plans for the Belt will be accepted after the study ends.

Though Cambridge negotiators report some minor victories in the battle over the scope of the study, their efforts may be exploded by the results of Tuesday's Presidential election. Even if Humphrey wins, Bridwell may leave his post as part of the inaugural changeover, leaving a vacancy which could be filled by one less sympathetic to the claims of cities facing highway construction.

Worse for Cambridge, if Richard Nixon wins the election, his faithful barker, Governor Volpe, will probably have, if not a cabinet post, at least enough influence to bend the ear of Bridwell's successor on the matter of the Belt. Though Volpe has remained mum on the Belt for almost two years, it's likely that Cambridge's continuing fight has not further endeared the City to the former highway contractor. The study could be scratched before it began.

After Bridwell's decision of last February, a relieved Cambridge sighed that at least the final, irrevocable decision on the Belt had been delayed for two years. But at the moment, no one can tell if it'll even be that long before the BPR makes the decision to send the bulldozers crawling up Brookline-Elm.