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Comments:
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As I look back at the Scheme Z story, I remember
feeling like the guy who smelled a gas leak,
stupidly struck a match to see where it was coming
from, and then watched as a fireball erupted.
Scheme Z was a political and urban-planning
controversy waiting to explode. I know some people
thought at the time I was crusading to destroy the
artery-tunnel project and drive Transportation
Secretary Fred Salvucci to a sanitorium; in
reality, I just happened to stumble into an amazing
story that took on a life of its own, thanks in
large part to the willingness of Globe editors such
as Greg Moore, Ellen Clegg and Nick King to give it
serious space and attention.
I would like to think that the Globe's reporting
on Scheme Z reflected what newspapers should always
do when confronted with a proposal to build
something huge and spend hundreds of millions of
dollars -- namely, subject it to intelligent,
constructive scrutiny. I continue to wonder if
people will really be happy with the revised
Charles River Crossing. It will be wide, awkwardly
sloped and heavily shadow the $80 million park
system. But I go back to the lede of a 1990 story:
Somehow, you've got to cross the river.
For all the grief Salvucci took, it bears
emphasizing, as I have written more than once, that
he (with Michael Dukakis's support) made an
extraordinary, positive impact by finally fixing
the T, strengthening not only Boston but Cambridge,
Somerville, Quincy and countless neighborhoods.
Scheme Z also showed how Boston is blessed to
have people who care, intensely, about their
communities, people like Steve Kaiser and Danny
King and Liz Epstein and Stan Miller and dozens of
others. I only wish that several other elements of
the artery-tunnel and other public construction
projects in Greater Boston had undergone the same
kind of intense review as Scheme Z did.
They, and we who live here, would be better for
it.
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