A GRASS ROOTS PERSPECTIVE ON THE BATTLE OF
SCHEME Z
By Stephen H. Kaiser
Continued, section 2
The Tune-Up BATTLE at ALEWIFE
While most of the world perceived Fred Salvucci as a
tower of strength in mid-1990, one area of Metropolitan
Boston had become aware that Fred was vulnerable, that he
could be beaten. The Alewife area of Cambridge, Belmont and
Arlington had been the subject of transportation planning
disputes for decades, going back to volatile Task Force
meetings in the 1970s and efforts to deal with highway,
transit and development issues.
Frictions continued into the mid 1980s over temporary
highway ramps into the Alewife garage and efforts to deal
with development controversies in the area. The chief EOTC
transportation planner, Mike Meyer, an Arlington resident
sought to bring about a consensus of the Alewife
Transportation Advisory Committee to support a single master
plan, and by late 1989 it appeared this agreement was
possible. However, when Mike Meyer left state government,
Fred Salvucci reappeared to take over leadership and
effectively overturned the committee consensus in favor of
his own preferred plan.
The result was an overwhelming sense of resentment by
government officials and citizens in the area. They felt the
process had been undermined and that individual opinions,
work and commitments were being ignored. Fred's actions had
the effect of unifying the citizen groups of the area as
they have never been before. Furthermore, government
officials were brought into the emerging Alewife Coalition
-- notably Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Conservation
Commission, Arlington Selectmen, Belmont Selectmen and the
MDC. For some of the activists like Carolyn Mieth, who had
trusted the machinery of democratic government, Fred was
guilty of treachery and was simply not to be trusted.
Under the leadership of George Laite (currently a
legislative aide to Sen. Robert Havern), the Arlington Good
Neighbors were organized into an intense leafleting and
telephoning power. They swamped the political system with
pressure.
Salvucci's preferred plan became dubbed "Salvucci's
Wall," and intense pressures were brought upon
Belmont/Arlington state Rep. Mary Jane Gibson, who was also
a fervent Salvucci loyalist. At a key public meeting in
Belmont, Rep. Gibson stood up and read a letter she had sent
to Salvucci requesting him to withdraw his plan.
Although Fred refused to give up and withdraw his plan,
the message had been delivered. He persisted in attempting
to push forward with a state-funded EIS/R for the Alewife
area, seeking to split the project into phases in order to
take the sting out of his highway plan.
By the Summer of 1990, the Chairman of the Belmont
Selectmen, Bill Monahan, phoned the Federal Highway
Administration in Cambridge inquiring of the status of the
Alewife plans. The FHWA indicated that the project was
proceeding and EOTC had stated that the plans had local
support. Monahan informed the FHWA about all the local
critics and put together a bulky packet of documentation
which showed the extent of opposition. The FHWA responded
quickly, rejecting the preliminary DEIS submission and
requiring the filing of a notice of project change for only
a railroad bridge replacement. Salvucci's Wall was dead.
Another remarkable feature of the Alewife denouement was
the manner in which FHWA announced their final decision. The
information was sent to the MAPC. Immediately thereafter,
the MAPC released the decision into the public domain, which
probably was the intent of FHWA. There was no way that EOTC
could bottle up the information and then use political
persuasion from Washington to overturn the FHWA
decision.
The defeat at Alewife showed to many people in Cambridge
that Salvucci could be beaten, that as awesome a Goliath as
he may have seemed at that time, there was a chance for the
opposition to Scheme Z.
THE STRATEGY TO WIN SUPPORT FOR SCHEME Z
From mid-1988 to mid-1989, Fred Salvucci worked
diligently and privately to sell all parties on Scheme Z. He
encountered much criticism from the beginning but developed
a multi-pronged strategy to win acceptance of his
proposals.
Support from the City of Boston was crucial, as was
acceptance from Mass General and the Beacon Hill community.
The agreements with the Charlestown community over CANA had
to be buttressed with new accommodations to retain
Charlestown's citizen acceptance of the Scheme Z loop
ramps.
On the other side of Millers River, Cambridge presented a
major challenge. The loss at Alewife meant that new
strategies of divide and conquer needed to be applied so
that Cambridge would be willing to accept Scheme Z in
exchange for other benefits.
A coalition of environmental groups was needed to counter
the critical independence of the Sierra Club and likely
opposition from the MDC. The Conservation Law Foundation
needed to brought within the tent, so that their ability to
file court challenges would be defused.
Finally, the Artery Business Committee and the
construction unions could be counted on to stress the
regional importance of the Central Artery project and the
importance of completing the river crossing section, even if
the interchange design was not very inspiring.
Arrayed against these support troops was the City of
Cambridge, the Sierra Club, the Charles River Watershed
Association, CRT, Richard Goldberg, the Rutherford Avenue
side of Charlestown, and the MDC. Also in opposition was an
increasingly uneasy Central Artery design staff, which
thought Scheme Z was a travesty and a major strategic
mistake. I found no CA/T staffer willing to stand up and
defend Scheme Z with any vigor. Salvucci was its only
champion. Arrayed against it on the inside were Matt Coogan,
Martha Bailey, Rebecca Barnes, Rick Azzalina and many
others. Even Bill Twomey showed no enthusiasm for Scheme
Z.
Much has been made of Martha Bailey's comment about being
the loyal soldier who would go out and "sell that dog." One
must understand the bureaucratic tensions in support of
loyalty, both the presumption of loyalty to the Boss and the
intense expectations of loyalty that Fred imposed on his own
troops. It was a terrible burden to wake up every day and
feel that you were expected to say publicly you supported a
highway design, when in truth you hated it and that such
hatred could be exposed to the public with only slight
provocation.
People were walking on eggshells. They were all "selling
dogs." They knew it and they hated it. I could tell from day
one that many staff members hated Scheme Z, so I did not
need to persuade them. I did not need to treat them badly
and indeed we all maintained a most respectful attitude
throughout the process. Matt Coogan flamed at me once, but
it was his refusal to "sell the dog" that elevated Martha
Bailey into the difficult position she had through the
latter difficult stages of the Scheme Z battle.
The professional strains affected planners, architects
and engineers. The story is told of the day that Fred
Salvucci brought Governor Dukakis down to South Station to
show him the latest progress on the Artery and introduced
Rick Azzalina to the Governor as "the man who designed
Scheme Z." Rick's heart sank to his shoes, and as he
reflected four years later, "I wanted to hide." His
signature was on the Scheme Z plans, and for many other
staff members involved in the exercise, a lot of shame
pervaded their daily existence. And it was more than guilt
by association. It was the guilt of participation.
..... City of Boston Support Strategy
It took about a year to convince an initially horrified
City of Boston to acquiesce to Scheme Z. Ultimately, Fred
Salvucci offered them an expansive Christmas tree of
requests -- as long as they accepted Scheme Z. This included
such city requests as a second underpass under Leverett
Circle, as well as City control of the Surface Artery and
development parcels. City officials in effect bought Fred's
Charlestown argument, which was that the
Charlestown/Miller's River area was a transportation
wasteland beyond any hope of salvation.
The North Station businessmen were attracted by the
possibilities for a New Boston Garden, a relocated Green
Line, a commuter parking garage built by the MBTA, and the
opening up of new development parcels in the area.
....... Beacon Hill Civic Association
Normally, one would have thought that the Beacon Hill
Civic Association would have been the most difficult
obstacle to Scheme Z. Like the original Leverett Circle
Bridge, it was big, ugly and threatening. It had the clear
potential to bring more traffic across the Charles River and
spill it onto Storrow Drive.
The Civic Association had been a very alert and
sophisticated force in fighting the 1970 plan, and they
clearly were organized, intelligent and resourceful in terms
of legal and political influence. The key factor was that in
Fred Salvucci they had someone who knew them well, knew
their sensitivities and had their trust. He knew how to play
them like a violin.
First, he limited the alternatives and played up the
"direct shot" threat of the S-family of tunnels connecting
City Square and Leverett Circle. He argued that orienting
the ramps parallel to I-93 would put more sharp turns and a
longer distance into vehicle routes, and in particular that
the double cross forced vehicles into a circuitous path. His
original promise was to connect Scheme Z into Leverett
Circle without changing any tunnels or ramps, so that any
local traffic metering points remained. With the carefully
selected choices and the traffic control spin attached,
residents came to feel that Scheme Z somehow protected them
from traffic, despite its 18 lanes of bridge traffic across
the river.
The traffic protection claim overcame all other
considerations, so that the Beacon Hill preference for
Scheme Z effectively wrote off any concern for aesthetics or
river impacts. The new roadway was sufficiently far away, on
the far side of Mass General hospital, so that it could be
seen as being "in someone else's backyard." Apparently there
was little concern for such a monster as Z being in the City
of Boston and no identification with being residents of the
larger City of Boston. There simply was no overview, no
metropolitan perspective, no vision, no urban conscience
coming from Beacon Hill. A narrow parochial attitude ruled
the day. Whatever criticism may be leveled at Beacon Hill
snobbishness in the past, nothing approaches the stained
reputation they garnered by their support for Scheme Z.
....... Mass. General Hospital Strategy
Mass General, the largest employer with 11,000 employees,
was the Charles River equivalent of Gillette. However,
Gillette lobbied successfully against a bridge over the Fort
Point Channel and in favor of a tunnel. Their reasons had
more to do with surface parking spaces and land access than
aesthetics, but Gillette ended up with a much less intrusive
highway neighbor. Mass. General, however, was a direct
neighbor to Scheme Z and would look out at all its visual
splendor, especially from the Spaulding Rehab Hospital.
We will never know the internal debates which may have
occurred over the Hospital's acceptance of Z, but I do know
from direct discussions that Spaulding personnel were aware
of the importance of an attractive vista to the
psychological well-being of their patients. The sprawling
ugliness of Scheme Z was surely a damaging loss to the
effectiveness of the Spaulding Hospital, but the resourceful
Mr. Salvucci must have promised numerous compensating
benefits to the Hospital to get the Board to accept Z.
The prime evidence is in the accommodation within the Z
plan for major new development on the MGH parking lot on
Nashua Street. In 1988, the real estate boom was still on,
so it would not take much goading from EOTC to get MGH
excited about the possibility of a massively intense
development of the site to FAR 14, towering 20 stories tall
with at least 3 levels of parking below grade.
In addition, the original Scheme Z plans showed a parking
garage to be constructed in the air rights over the North
Station rail tracks. The combination of all of these
underground and aboveground garages had the physical effect
of blocking out almost all ramp alternatives to Scheme
Z.
During the BDRC discussions of alternatives to Z, Mass
General's concerns became directly known about how new
tunnels through the parking lot would diminish the
development potential of this parcel. However, it also
became clear that the only way to avoid any such tunnels
would be to adopt a double-cross ramping system, and Scheme
Z was in such utter disrepute that such prospects were dim.
The real estate market was also collapsing, and many people
commented unfavorably on the massive bulk of the building
proposed by MGH. As the BDRC continued, gradually the
discussion of development potential on the parking lot
became a forgotten subject and instead plans were shown to
locate massive vent buildings on the parking lot,
effectively requiring the State to purchase the land and
development rights.
Community meetings in the Spaulding hospital also
highlighted another problem for MGH property. The odor of
diesel fumes was clearly noticeable within the hospital, as
the HVAC system pulled in the exhaust from the trains in the
yard below. Clearly, it is very difficult to operate a rehab
hospital when noticeably polluted air is being pumped in
beyond the hospital's control. Whether there were other
financial considerations of financial strength or weakness,
we don't know, but beginning in 1992 proposals were made to
take the Spaulding Hospital as part of plan 8.1.D Mod 5 and
when this plan later lost front-runner status, MGH put the
state on written notice it would sue if the hospital was not
taken.
Mass General is also a member of the Cambridge Street
Development Corporation, which was established to jointly
plan development along the lower end of Cambridge Street. In
effect, the Corporation was used to assure close
coordination between the Hospital and the Beacon Hill Civic
Association, with Joe Hinkle and Tony Pangaro taking the
lead.
Overall, it appears that the primary factor getting MGH
on-board was the development potential of their parking lot.
The aesthetic damage to the River and the
Cambridge/Charlestown side became ignored issues. Like the
Beacon Hill Civic Association, the Hospital failed to
distinguish itself in its judgment about Scheme Z.
..... Charlestown Support Strategy
East Charlestown, the Historical Commission and
Preservation Groups had all been pulled into support of
Scheme Z because of the promise of removing elevated ramps
from City Square and increased open space/development
parcels, as well as access to the waterfront. Furthermore,
Scheme Z could be presented to them as simply an increase in
the ramps over the ugly rail yards, and the original ramp
proposal into the rail area was proposed by Bill Lamb, a
Charlestown resident/architect active in CANA and BDRC. The
ramps could be seen as being thrown onto the other side of
Charlestown, a less yuppified section which included Danny
King, who had just built a new house overlooking Rutherford
Avenue.
Some projects hinge on not alienating the wrong person.
Possibly if Danny King had sold his house to an elderly
couple, there would have been no significant protest
organized from the west Charlestown community. But Danny
King was no pushover, nor was his wife. She had long roots
in the community and together they went into the scheme Z
protest with leafleting, phoning and organizing that at
times must have bordered on frenzy. It certainly did no good
when Fred Salvucci and his supporters wrote off the area
facing his house as a dump and a wasteland.
.... East Cambridge Support Strategy
Fred Salvucci should have known from his old days of
Inner Belt protest that Cambridge would be the most volatile
area and the hardest to tame. The results of 1990 show that
Fred made major miscalculations here. What he thought was
going to be a clever cakewalk ended rather quickly in
devastating defeat.
Fred sought to get union support, as well as a key local
developer -- the Congress group, represented by Cambridge
native Richie McKinnon. Congress Group had a proposal to
construct an apartment complex and a hotel on land across
from the science Museum, in the North Point area.
As a private entity, Congress Group did not need state
funds for their project. However, the land originally
included rail tracks, and the construction of any building
offered the State (EOTC) the right of first refusal on the
rail right-of-way. A law designed to protect the abandonment
of rail rights of way now meant that Fred Salvucci had a
firm lever on the Congress Group. In previous years, EOTC
had demonstrated a desire to use every permit and influence
within their power to obtain traffic mitigation and
development concessions from private developers. Such
efforts made sense in the context of developers compensating
public bodies for the traffic burdens they imposed.
But the permit signoffs on old trackage rights also
provided EOTC with an all-purpose lever to use to enhance
the chances of Scheme Z approval. The obvious deal from the
EOTC viewpoint was: EOTC signs away the rail rights and
sweetens the deal with $3-4 million in infrastructure
improvements (water & sewer) while Congress Group agrees
to support Scheme Z.
Furthermore, to help make the Congress Group effort more
supportable by the community, the developer offered to
provide 25 units of "affordable housing" to be made
available to Cambridge residents, while other units went at
market rates. This way East Cambridge would be getting
something from the combination of the Congress development
and Scheme Z.
Salvucci first began lining up local politicians. Rep.
Peter Vellucci and Councilor Tim Toomey were initially
sympathetic, as were Councilors Frank Duehay and Walter
Sullivan. City Manager Healy and Community Development chief
Mike Rosenberg could be counted on to go along with a
buy-off package, similar to the strategy used for Boston.
Other Councilors may have initially supported Scheme Z, but
eventually everyone smelled a dead fish and spoke out
unanimously in opposition to Scheme Z.
Salvucci also was aware of the provincialism of East
Cambridge. If he could get local community leaders to go
along, opposition from any other group, such as the CCA or
CCLN would be seen as unwelcome meddling by outsiders. The
community activist structure of East Cambridge was unique in
that the two most influential groups had substantially the
same officers and members: the East Cambridge Planning Team
and the East Cambridge Stabilization Committee.
The Planning Team was a carryover from the War on Poverty
days of OEO, while East Cambridge shares with North
Cambridge the distinction of the only neighborhoods in
Cambridge having Stabilization Committees. The key leaders
were Rich Vendetti, Pat Lomans, and Hugo Salemme. Whether
Salvucci planned it this way from the beginning is doubtful,
but the EOTC Secretary made three separate visits to
personally meet in East Cambridge with the Stabilization
Committee to make his case for Scheme Z. The results of this
confrontation will be described in more detail below.
.... MDC Support Strategy
The EOTC strategy towards winning over the MDC was based
on offering Esplanade park mitigation, in exchange for the
MDC going along with a declaration of the Charles River as
not 4(f) parkland in the area of the Scheme Z bridge
crossing. The aim was to bring extensive pressure on MDC
Commissioner Bhatti to capitulate and to ignore what Fred
perceived as the likely opposition of MDC Planning Director
Julia O'Brien.
... Environmental Group support
To this day Fred Salvucci sees himself as a friend of the
environment and a friend of environmentalists. In spite of
his advocacy of Scheme Z, most people who know Fred believe
he is sincere. They describe the Scheme Z disaster as a
failure of judgment, not of honesty.
Fred was also an advocate for pedestrians and was opposed
to the widening of country roads. There were many
environmental vibes in the psyche of Fred Salvucci which
seemed genuine and admirable. Therefore, after years of
camaraderie, it is not surprising that he would call in his
chips of loyalty from environmental friends and ask for
their support on Scheme Z. He promised environmental
mitigation, new parks in Boston Harbor, esplanade
enhancements, and a host of other benefits which were
designed to compensate for the horrors of Scheme Z.
Most environmental groups were willing to give Fred the
benefit of the doubt, and even a faction of the Sierra Club
was willing to go along. Only a die-hard contingent led by
John and Louise Lewis refused to go along, because they felt
cheated when Fred widened the highway and abandoned the rail
link.
Fred was able to bring along establishment environmental
groups like the Greenspace Alliance by promises of
compensatory mitigation. He also cleverly fathered a new
group, the 1,000 Friends of Massachusetts which promised to
defend environmental values while assuring that
Massachusetts retained a favorable economic climate. They
were strongly supportive of the underground Central Artery,
but during the Scheme Z future they were strangely silent.
Many established environmental groups which were members of
1,000 friends, such as the Audubon Society, were initially
shielded from temptations to speak out independently.
Finally, Fred Salvucci was masterful in mollifying the
Conservation Law Foundation. Director Doug Foy successfully
built up the CLF reputation and budgets over the years. He
longed to make his mark in the field of transportation, and
initiated a Car-Is-The-Enemy program to push an air
pollution and transit agenda. Over the years he had
developed a respect for and good working relationship with
Salvucci, especially in regard to resisting developer
pressures and obtaining mitigation benefits through the MEPA
process. Furthermore, Fred offered an opportunity to commit
the state to the type of comprehensive plan for transit
mitigation which Doug Foy dreamed of.
The plan ultimately took the form of the Memorandum of
Understanding of December 1990, which was signed at the 11th
hour amid great controversy. Salvucci also sought
successfully to have EOEA Secretary DeVillars incorporate
the transit MOU into the final MEPA determination, but was
unsuccessful with Federal Highway. Nevertheless, such
cooperation prevented CLF from taking legal action against
Scheme Z until August 1991, after the FHWA rejection of the
MOU.
...Artery Business Committee Support
Artery Business Committee members had no reason to be
ecstatic about Scheme Z, since most of them were intelligent
enough to recognize an ugly interchange when they saw one.
However, in the interests of unity with the overall project,
most members went along with Scheme Z by using the old
argument about breaking eggs in order to make an omelet.
Like loyal troopers, they stayed with Fred until he
unilaterally changed Scheme Z in November 1990 and removed
the critical Traverse Street ramp. ABC felt the decision was
a bad one and as a group they were unappreciated.
ASSEMBLING THE TROOPS
The same way that Boston capitulated to Scheme Z
pressures from Salvucci, the MDC was expected to go along as
well. However, it was not as easy, and ground was given
begrudgingly, a little bit at a time. Fred's long-standing
bitterness over past disputes with Julia O'Brien came back
into the open, with Fred's accusations about MDC's poor
stewardship of its land, with the extensive selling off of
parkland over the years.
Although EOTC was able to effectively crush any open MDC
resistance, agency staff continued to work with outsiders to
oppose Scheme Z. A key outreach occurred when Julia O'Brien,
Liz Epstein and Karen Pelto met to discuss the threat posed
by Z. While the MDC could do little openly, it was clearly
up to others--Cambridge and CRWA--to protest against Scheme
Z.
Together with Jollene Dubner, the MEPA staff reviewer on
the Artery, they formed the elements of an "Old Girls'
Network" which constituted both a means of communication and
a support group for when the going got tough. Since many men
felt awed by the power of Fred Salvucci, it was probably
quite reasonable for women to feel the need for such mutual
support. Twenty years or more ago, such a support network
would have been unthinkable.
By the Spring of 1990, Karen and Liz coordinated the most
open and effective criticism of Scheme Z. The result was the
creation of an ad hoc Charles River crossing committee,
which sought to identify mitigation actions and resolve
philosophical disputes, without discussing any major changes
to Scheme Z. Eventually, another mitigation committee was
set up led by an official mediator David O'Connor, and
included Bob Weinberg, Bob O'Brien, Mike Rosenberg, Liz
Epstein and Karen Pelto. The river crossing issue continued
to simmer as Karen and Liz persisted in their challenge to
Scheme Z and counter-proposals for mitigation were offered.
In the end, the mediation efforts were unsuccessful and were
abandoned.
In Cambridge, Mayor Alice Wolf became an important ally
of Liz Epstein and worked consistently to oppose Scheme Z.
Meanwhile, intense efforts were made to put pressure on
Karen Pelto. Salvucci phoned all of the CRWA directors and
tried to have her fired, but he was rebuffed.
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