K. Dun Gifford comments, August 25, 1998 I represented the Committee for Regional Transportation on the Bridge Design Review Committee. I was a latecomer to the CRT; this group asked me to join and serve as a spokesman. Contrary to what some have alleged, the CRT did not want to kill the Central Artery: indeed, we favored the plan to remove that blighting, elevated structure. Rather, we wanted to improve the project. We had a ten-point agenda, and in fact, we achieved most of what we sought - such as getting an HOV lane and reducing the amount of tunnel excavate that would be dumped on Spectacle Island. Improving the river crossing was one of our objectives. For me, there is no justification for taking precious urban riverfront out of the public domain. Any bridge over the Charles River would have occupied land that should have been used for parks. My crossing choice, therefore, was a tunnel: to continue the depressed Central Artery underground, under the river, and have it emerge in Cambridge and Somerville well away from the water's edge. I believe the state should have pushed for this option back in the 1980s, when it had a powerful Congressional delegation and could have gotten 90 percent federal funding for the tunnel. That there was little or no public criticism of the state's bridge plan in the 1985 Final Environmental Impact Statement does not mean that the public didn't care about, or accepted, the plan: they simply didn't know about it. By 1990, when the appearance and dimensions of Scheme Z became known, it was widely criticized. Although the political landscape had changed by then, it still wasn't too late for the state to choose a tunnel for the crossing. A tunnel was feasible, it was the right thing to do, and the state should have gone to Washington and fought for it. But the state didn't, and this reluctance to seek more money foreclosed the possibility of a tunnel and of altering the bridge plan in any important way - with, for example, tunnels for off-ramps though not for the mainline road. The Bridge Design Review Committee, as the name signifies, was concerned with bridge design not with bridge alternatives. The BDRC was a fantastic effort; I was able to air my views and got a fair hearing. But the members understood that cost would be the determining factor. We realized that we could only influence the project at the margins. While I believe that the committee's work did improve the final design of the crossing, it isn't what I wanted or what the city deserves. I also dislike the design of the cable-stay bridge planned for the project: it's a squat-looking thing made of materials that have no connection with Boston. In the end, the people in charge of the Central Artery were afraid to reopen the matter of cost with the Feds: they feared that seeking additional funds for a better crossing would kill the whole project. This is what constrained our options. But this also means that no federal money will be available for many of the park projects that the state promised. Nevertheless, removing the old elevated Central Artery will be a boon to the city. I favor its removal and always have.  [Top of page][Back to on-line archive] [Home]