Massachusetts Viewpoint; Memorial Drive - Man and Machine

Good evening. Welcome again to Massachusetts viewpoint. Tonight we are discussing a most important concern to many people who live in the greater Boston area and a concern of all Americans actually living anywhere in its larger context to the question of man and machine. Tonight our topic is Memorial Dr. Mann and machine but as our discussion goes along I'm sure that we'll see that the question of how we handle automobile traffic is a question that does not only concern us here in Boston or in Cambridge or in our suburban areas around the metropolitan area but concerns all Americans everywhere. As you know there are some 78 million land vehicles in the United States today. Resources for the future an organization in Washington D.C. which studies such things says that by the year 2000 which is not all that far away we'll have something like two hundred forty four million land vehicles in the United States so that the problems that we're going to talk about tonight the problems of managing automobile

transport in our cities and metropolitan areas are not likely to get better unless our solutions for handling these vehicles improve as we go along. Tonight our discussion of Memorial Drive man and machine is going to be conducted by a panel of distinguished citizens who have a great deal at stake and what we're talking about and who have a great deal of information about the question for tonight's discussion. One of our guests is Mr. Edward L. Bernays organizer of the Cambridge citizens Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive. Mr. Robert S. Blumenthal a transportation and engineer and partner in the firm of Bruce Campbell and Associates which has conducted an important traffic survey of the Memorial Drive traffic conditions. Mrs. Corney of the BEA Wheeler who is a member of the Cambridge City Council and representing the fourth estate here this evening is Mr. Albert de Hughes a staff writer on

transportation for the Christian Science Monitor. The question that's before us tonight specifically addressing ourselves to Memorial Drive to begin with has been very much in the news these last few weeks and matter of concern and discussion by a number of citizens groups. I just. A day or so ago for example a meeting was held by the citizens Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive and the report in the newspaper had this to say. Highway planners should be required to draw up long range master plans for Boston and Cambridge before super highways such as the one planned for Memorial Drive. Replace scenery with cement. PETER BLAKE urged yesterday according to this report. Peter Blake is as you perhaps know the author of the controversial bestseller God's own junkyard which I certainly urge you to look at. To read if you can. He asked residents to insist on a master plan to stop the nation wide traffic highway trend which has created

as he said more problems than it has solved. Mr. Black went on to say in a not altogether dispassionate way we can no longer afford to have our cities shaped or misshaped by technicians who or whose sole interest is getting many thousands of cars per hour from one place to another. But their power is now so vast that once they have built their super highways in a wrong place as they propose to do in Cambridge. No amount of urban design however inspired can possibly erase that mistake. Well this is one man's point of view. Mr. Peter Blake's point of view it represents part of a controversy about the Memorial Drive plan. And we need in order to get background on the present controversy to turn I believe first to Mr. Albert Hughes of the Christian Science Monitor who is going to give us a brief recapitulation of what it's all about. What is the story Mr. Hughes. Well Dr. Patterson as I recall of the Memorial Dr. legislation was passed in 1962

and was signed by Governor of pay I believe. And I also believe that it was done under what they call suspension of the rules which would indicate possibly some haste in passing this legislation. Then recently when the MDC announced its plans for the day the Memorial Drive underpass program Cambridge citizens became alarmed at the implications. And this seemed a surprise. And some of the Cambridge legislators who said that that no particular class was raised when the legislation was originally passed. However in the case of legislatures that of legislate TAWS it has seemed to me there was always time and room for second thoughts and second thoughts have

occurred in this programme. Well this certainly Mr. Hughes gives us a gives us a start on considering Memorial Drive as a case example of man and machine. I'd like if we made a move from what you've just said about the active citizen involvement in defining a position with regard to this projected change in Memorial Drive to turn if we may for a moment first to Mr. Edward L. Bernays and see why he undertook to organize a Cambridge citizens Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive. I think I think Mr. Hewitt has very effectively outlined some of the elements that brought about the interest of Cambridge citizens in trying to save them oil. I think there were certain elements that I would like to add to what he said. First of all Memorial Drive is a four mile stretch of that abuts the river that has recreation

and playgrounds that very definitely are useful for the poor the wealthy the students senior citizens and everybody who enjoys a spot of green in in an urban society like ours. Secondly Memorial Drive is a lovely drive way lined with trees and it had it was engineered purposefully by Charles Elliott in 1890 to to standards that only moderate speeds could be safely sustained. It's a drive about which senators saw in store recently wrote me that it was one of the most enjoyable drives that he ever took as a student and later when he lived here it's a

drive that is less than 400 yards away from the new Kennedy Library and would provide for such a library. A very lovely vista if it remained as it is. But furthermore it is a drive on which the wanton expenditure of six million dollars has not been necessitated. Either by a master plan which set up the pattern of roads in 1948 but was not included there. Number two it is it is contemplated to destroy this drive within the ranch or express highway. When the City Planning Board of Cambridge states have to careful study that the expenditure of one hundred thousand dollars of taxpayers money for electric controls

would serve as useful a purpose as would be served by the wasteful expenditure of six million dollars. Third as now constituted the drive has a bottleneck at one end and a bottleneck at another so that even if it were speeded up by underpasses the cost six million plus and that could be as effectively said speed in which traffic could be as effectively speeded up by the expenditure of hundreds of 100000 dollars. All these elements make this a completely wanton unnecessary and croaks moment on playgrounds and scenic beauty on historical belief on recreation ground. And if this is permitted to go through it will mean that the machine for

no useful purpose. The automobile has triumphed over values that are an important element to the needs and to the desires of the human beings who not only live in Cambridge but who go to this drive in order to get recreation leisure beauty and comfort. Thank you very much Mr. Brown eyes will be coming back to your views on this and on larger matters in a moment. But I'd like if we may now to to turn the tables a bit and ask Mr. Blumenthal who is a transportation engineer and who is carefully surveyed traffic conditions on Memorial Drive what his views are with regard to with regard to conditions there. Mr. Blumenthal thank you doctor. May I state first of all I am here today representing only myself. We have many clients and have worked for the Metropolitan District Commission at

various times but today I do not represent the commission nor do I really represent their consulting engineers who are presently working on this underpass problem on Memorial Drive. I know first that many factors go into highway planning and today as highway planners we work very closely with the so-called urban planners as well as city planners and as a matter of fact our organization is an integrated organization of city planners as well as highway planners. Many things that have been said are true in a certain respect but in evaluation of the transportation problem as it relates to the overall development of the communities involved there are several factors that have not as yet been brought out.

First we want to consider. A memorial drive not as a necessarily as a through route or expressway for now and in the future. Since we hope that in the future the master planning that has been done and this is combined master planning that I speak of will be able to provide us with an integrated transportation system to relieve this route so that the maximum use can be made of its recreation facilities. In the case of Memorial Day drive the recreational facilities are extremely limited as most people who live in this area know we have a factor coming into effect which will cause complications to the drive in a very short period of time. This is the extension of the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge Street. Which

will interchange approximately 25000 vehicles per day in the fall of 1964. If the present schedule is met by the Turnpike Authority. Therefore we can expect with no changes. That the existing congestion that exists at River Street and West and I have no do be supplemented and increased greatly. I don't seriously that the Metropolitan District Commission first of all as we talk about these things can be accused of attempting to reduce the amount of recreational facilities the number of recreational facilities in the metropolitan area. If any one organization has worked and developed recreational facilities in the Boston metropolitan area it has been the commission. And in every instance they have

attempted to provide facilities which will serve the public and have tried to place them strategically at least from my office observations. So that they can be used by all. The. Situation as outlined by Mr. Bernays indicates that the Memorial Drive has many recreational facilities and playgrounds and that. There will be encroachment upon these facilities by construction of the underpass. I would like to disagree to a certain extent on some portions of the statement. The first. Underpass that will be constructed not necessarily in terms of time but at River Street and Western Avenue. It does not involve recreational facilities at all. The present land use at these locations is

industrial and commercial. There are no recreational facilities and as a matter of fact there is very little place to go or. Sit or anything else along the way and. Within the plans as I understand they will be developed. As much. Additional space will be provided. So there will be some green at these locations now. I thought the other ran that Boylston Street on the Lars Andersson bridge. The plans I have seen indicate that every attempt will be made to preserve as much of the existing space as possible and in some cases. They will be enhanced and widened where the where it is possible. So I would like to comment on one other item. And that's the statement by the Cambridge planning board. That expenditures of above approximately one hundred thousand dollars for traffic control

devices would accomplish the same purpose. These are electronically controlled traffic lights I assume so all this was a statement that came out in the papers I understand that I have had no report their earnings. The Cambridge planning board do a very thorough examination. I was very impressed with the men that did it MacLennan is that his name he read it at a meeting and it was a very powerful and conclusive document. Talking just to the point that Mr Green told me I finished this one and with that background Mr. Bernays Let's let Mr. Blumenthal finish his point with regard to the traffic controls. I feel that Mr. Bernays this is very close to my heart since traffic engineering is my field and as a member of the Highway Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences I serve on the highway capacity Committee where capacity of signalized intersections is my field definitely.

We should hear what you say that. We have carefully evaluated. The proposition as one facet of the studies that we made on the Dr.. And I will say that it is possible through the use of traffic control devices to increase the capacity at these intersections. However only if we also make maximum land takings so that we can get approach with it's commensurate with the necessary capacity. In other words we're going to try and just say oh you're English but I'm trying to say basically is this it would be necessary to take a great expanse of land area beyond and within the present drive in order to make signals work. The traffic control devices themselves might cost a hundred thousand dollars but the land taking would be so

great in order to make this thing work. And in addition I believe at this time we also determined we would require new bridges across the Charles River. So that in essence and I will try to get too technical. You don't $200000 would not provide a relief. Along a moral drive if they were only use for traffic saying come back to your point in a moment but I would like going forward full circle around the table to ask councillor Cornelia B who were of the Cambridge City Council. I was coming at this point as an interested citizen talking from a standpoint of the government of the city in which most of this was intended to happen. Mrs. Wheeler and I would agree completely that the MDC has done a wonderful job on giving Cambridge and the whole of metropolitan Boston a good recreational facilities. But I also think that they fight against each

other in their desire to be both traffic movers and recreational developers. If you look at what they did in Boston on developing the play area outside of star of drive you've seen what happens to that that's used minimally. People simply cannot get out there and if they can. I don't think a lot of them hardly dare to go out there you're so isolated that it's your cut off. And if you look along Charles Street where the high are and fences had to be built to keep the children from running across to the recreational area that the MDC developed there with one hand to cut off the good that they've done with the other hand. And I simply don't want to see this happen in Cambridge. The space is very small along the Charles River for the use of recreational enjoyment. Still I would like to be able to reach it I would like to have all the citizens of Cambridge be able to reach that small area and enjoy it and if you bring in a river of traffic you make this impossible. Well now you can say I in fact I believe the report said that

it will do. It will not really increase the traffic along Memorial Drive to build the underpasses simply because the rest of the road won't be able to carry the load any further because the rest of the drive is not that type of a highway. Well then you have built your underpasses with this enormous expenditure of money and within the next few years they undoubtedly will take more land. To improve the rest of the highway the situation gets worse and worse. Well the city council finally I think has waked up to the fact this would happen to us and they are also getting ready to put their foot down to stop making Cambridge the thruway for the suburbanites that must reach Boston. We want to see the rest of the highway transportation our highway but other forms of transportation developed to help these people get in so that these single car people carrying single cars Kerrick single people into Boston will stop cluttering up and our streets all the way through. Let them use the mass transportation system and we are now

ready to really try and take such a stand. You say that you are You mean of the city I mean the city council actually passed orders saying that they wished all construction in Cambridge stopped until a sensible traffic study was made of all now essentially unanimously. Very good like humans we are I think we have a question for Mr. Hughes. Could I ask you why hasn't the city. Not only got in the MDC got in the MDC but put the MDC and the Department of Public Works together to bring about this other solution that you know is talked about which is to bring in Route 2 and 3 north of the city into the city network. The stalemate there is plain and simply that this is going to displace more human people homes and Cambridge to a new extend Ruutu. And though I think we all know that this is part of a master plan that will probably have to be executed.

We haz take to push for it. We have a very small residential area in the city of Cambridge as you know and when you do knock out some 200 more families it's very very hard to find a place for them they like living in Cambridge. We cannot be enthusiastic about any drug coming though we know. I think that it must happen. This route to extension of course is part of the master highway plan that is right. Ah I've never seen anything it included Memorial Drive and a master plan. This is simply a development of this and DC's magic nation because they're good at moving traffic. Well a city like Cambridge is certainly caught between the inner city and the outer ring of suburbs and the automobile industry is the trap that is there on the right is the villain Mr Brazier had a comment. I wanted to comment on several statements that have been made the first statement referred to the fact that the underpasses is Mr. Blumenthal's statement you're commenting on.

Right. That the that the underpasses do not make an express highway that is obviously true. But let me quote from what Mr. Blake said. The real point is that the time has come for our cities not to be shaped too for our cities to be shaped not by highway engineers but by urban design is and planners who start with the human needs of the city and then subordinate all the services required including super highways to those human needs. I think that you have pointed up a central issue here Mr Bearnaise and it's one that actually Mr. Hughes raised to the question of overall planning and the question of coordination of efforts on the part of suburban towns cities and so on. It is a very

urgent one for us to consider. And when we look at a specific project like they proposed underpasses on Memorial Drive alone out of context I'm sure that we all agree that this is is not wise. The problem is how you can get. 43 cities and towns in greater metropolitan Boston to work together to get the kind of better solution were the better for the greater number of people that we would all want to see. At present what we have here is one small piece of the problem. Part of the mosaic which I understand from what you've said and what I've read you are very unhappy with and I can certainly see why I can see why Mrs. Weaver is but the question is What do you do about the automobile. What do you do about transportation. And if we're going to hear from Mr. Blumenthal for a moment I think it might be helpful. Without any question coordinated planning is one of the most essential items required for any community or

metropolitan area. And I think we also believe we're losing sight of the fact that such is what is actually going on in the Boston area right now. The. Indication here that the highway planner has made the urban planner or city plan a subservient I believe is erroneous at the present time we have under way one of the largest studies now being performed by the Boston Regional Planning project in which all types of planning are taking place. We also have at the same time organized within the last six months a Metropolitan Planning Council which is composed of the cities and towns and served by one or more of the services which are available from the Metropolitan District Commission. We

have just completed a mass transportation study under. The state government. So I don't feel that we are. Completely lost as far as the highway plan is concerned and I might say this also highway planners are human beings. They are. Not. Robots or anything else out there they were planning they have they can make mistakes and there's no question but that they have. However on the overall picture I think they've done an excellent job throughout the United States. In addition at the present time. 1 1 sustaining organization that has put their funds into the Boston Regional Planning project is the Massachusetts Department of Public Works and they are at the present time working going into each community within the state within the

project area and this includes 100 cities and towns in an attempt to reach a cooperation agreement with these community. So I don't think it's all on the black side. I'd like to hear Mr. Bernays point as he rises when I had come back. Mr. Blumenthal I'd like to reintroduce our program of our May this is Franklin Patterson speaking to you from Lincoln filing center at Tufts University our Massachusetts viewpoint program tonight is examining the issues involved in the proposed changes in Memorial Drive Our topic is Memorial Drive. Man and machine. But as you can see we're looking farther afield than Cambridge we're looking at the general picture of the impact of the automobile on urban planning. Our guests this evening are Mr. Edward Elbern A is who was the organizer of the Cambridge citizens Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive. Mr. Robert C. Blumenthal whose voice you just heard a traffic engineer a specialist in the

study of traffic conditions a partner in the firm of Bruce Campbell and associates and Mrs. Cornelia Bea Wheeler who is a member of the Cambridge City Council and a an active part of the cause against changes in the Memorial Drive. Conditions as they now exist are journalist tonight is Mr. Albert Hughes who is a staff writer on transportation for the Christian Science Monitor. And you were hearing a moment ago a gun exchange between Mr. Blumenthal and the beginnings of an exchange with Mr. Bearnaise before Mr. Bernays comes on strong which I think he's going to do in about a second here I couldn't help thinking when he made his comment a few moments ago about what Lawrence Ferlinghetti the California poet something he's a poet says in one of his lines where he predicts freeways 50 lanes wide as the future not only of California but of the United States.

Looking at the great freeway system in Los Angeles Mr. Bernays you must admit that there's some strength in your argument that the automobile certainly does seem to breed itself in a sense that we get a freeway that's six lanes wide it has to be eight lanes wide zone and then perhaps 10 and perhaps Lawrence Ferlinghetti maybe right maybe 50 lanes wide. Actually I suppose what we have here is a classic problem namely a conflict between technology and human resources to cope with technology. If we are increasing in number of land vehicles as I indicated the beginning of the program from about 78 million right now to a projection of two hundred forty four million by the end of the century it's going to have to. Be dealt with rather rapidly the situation is one that's moving so fast from a technological standpoint that I wonder whether And I speak on Mr. Blumenthal as a member of the metropolitan area Planning Council or whether we're going to move fast enough to arrive ample times of overall you know

find solutions that will help a city like Cambridge survive in a community sense under the impact of all of this traffic but that's enough editorializing for me now to Mr. Bernays who's pent up and ready to go. Oh my love. I never blame an individual for being enthusiastic about his professional vocation. In fact the law closely he identifies himself with it. The more effective he is in that particular vocation or profession you'd say this is true for example like relation I certainly would and I would talk as enthusiastically about public relations as Mr. Blumenthal does about the highway plan right. But I find that in a society like ours any special pleader. Must be discounted in his

enthusiasm because the assumption is that he never would have gone into his particular area of competence if he hadn't been fitted for it and hadn't identified himself with it. Good sadists become effective surgeons. We've just lost their main goal. No need to burn. I can only when I look at the situation. I look at it as I would look at a matter for clients whether that client being a newspaper or whether that client be a great government or whatever and what I have done before I came to a conclusion on this was to have had a research made about the varying points of view relative to the maintenance of a decent and brown environmental urban area in which

people can live without being completely and compassed by the machine or the automobile. Well these are the conclusions I've come to on an objective basis not as a highway planet that are completely contrary to Mr. Blumenthal. This is before you organize became British citizens of one strike and many mine other words we find that there is so much fact and there's so much diversity in fact and there is so much of what you might call a C like Dave crude that unless you look at this thing the way and now I think of a beneficence surgeon the way a surgeon looks that he's all right because I mean our surgeon was Howard said right hard man you're apt to get involved in all kinds of as I said identification with your goat. Now what we found first of all and this I know from personal experience because I had the good fortune some years ago to advise some of the

largest motor company I've also had the good fortune of the past to advise some of the largest oil companies. I've also been not as close to contract years as some people are but we have advised contractors over the last 50 years. I have found that the political the economic pressures of large units of power in this country which in turn really represent economic state within the political states have a tremendous influence in affecting the social patterns and in affecting the and tired social being of our society. Not always bad sometimes good. But unless as Galbraith says countervailing forces build up against these perfectly normal economic

and other pressures you're apt to find that a pleasant resort in the Samedi Valley becomes another coolie island in its appearance. You're apt to find that a lovely highway becomes a. A highway of pizza palaces and hot dog stands so low that when you when someone says that highway planners proceed in a lovely vacuum of no pressures I say they may in their own minds. But all of the pressures all our time to construct and construct and construct. Secondly I take again as my example a man who is recognized today as an expert. He says the most the Blake the most severe criticism is

reserved for that maniacal specialist. I apologize for what he says to you although I believe that you're talking to Mr. Blumenthal Mr. Blumenthal the highway planner who is surrounding us with a labyrinth of concrete spaghetti and who builds his Chinese walls along the waterfront of our cities thus making it impossible for the citizens to enjoy one of the potentially most beautiful assets of the town scape. But let me go from Mr. Blake who may be considered to be a propagandist though not a paid one. No he doesn't profit from it. You economically Let us for a moment go to a man who has a high reputation as an outstanding statesman Stuart you doubt I wrote to him about this matter and he says it is the philosophy of this

department that's the department of engineering that expressways should be carefully designed to move vehicles as quickly and safely as possible while at the same time of voiding scenic and historic areas of national significance. As a matter of fact we have had some historians study this. This Memorial Drive and the place I would say is indisputably of historical significance and I am hopeful that Mr. you will agree with us in that conclusion. He goes on to say there is a growing awareness of the need for allegedly scenic drives engineer to set standards that only moderate speeds can be safely sustained. Highway engineers are not necessarily experts in other fields. I'm not quoting myself I'm quoting the man whose

function as the head of this government department it is to maintain values in the society. They tend to think only in terms of their assignment. If that assignment be an expressway and certainly the mandate you doll is not saying this the mandate came from the legislature to the MDC and I'm not blaming them because they're only the tool of the legislature and anybody that they get to carry out their mandate in turn is there to have been absent. You know the term in the sense of the person has to do the job right. An instrument may be better if that assignment be an expressway. It may well be up to watchful agencies or groups of citizens to point out where irreplaceable natural assets of being subverted to speed. More and more it is becoming necessary for experts in such fields as

expressway engineering to be receptive to other possibly conflicting interests. When I say that some changes are irreversible I most certainly would include expressways billboards can be toppled litter can be swept up streams can be cleaned out but very few working expressways have ever been demolished so that the original winding roads and river banks and benches could be restored. These are the changes that must be prevented since they can never be corrected. Close quotes down. Thank you very much Mr. Bernays for this interesting quotation from a secretary you doubt. It certainly highlights the nature of the concern that all of us have for the preservation of these facilities and good attributes of a community. I think that the problem we see emerging here is

not one of whether we are for motherhood or against it but of what you can do about the conditions that you've just described what really is feasible here. I suppose in one sense Mr. Blumenthal has been talking about the conditions as an expert traffic student sees them but the problems that I see require some expertise in the field of citizen participation and politics on the influencing of decisions. And you've suggested this Mr. Bearnaise and indeed in quoting from Secretary you Dalla about the value of citizens committees and in your earlier mention of the possibilities of countervailing forces. But I wonder what can be done now if something is desirable Mrs. Wheeler might want to comment on this. What can be done politically at this point to stop the underpasses as much as we are.

Nearby are you I think if we wait I'm afraid my mind was concentrating on another angle of it. Well let's take off I might angle on this a bit on the if you come up with studies from the metropolitan area Planning Council of Boston Regional Planning project a mass transportation study all trying to do an overall planning for the area and all of that a lot of that is that I don't have time on the legislature. How are we going to influence the general thinking of the legislature are they too far committed to the pressures that are put on them which I am scared off. Mr. Hughes Do you have a Dr. Patterson I would like to address the result of that subject. It seems to me that that in the present situation we have a very powerful road building group. And if you look at the situation as of this moment such large projects as the as the turnpike extension and the Prudential Center and other things are on the point of being finished completed

that means that that there will be perhaps dozens of large contractors in not very many months looking for more work. And I just asked myself what sort of work will I want more highways presumably. And it seems to me that at at this point that we must be extremely alert the citizenry certainly must be alert and it seems to me that some alternate method of transportation is called for is going to be necessary. I don't know whether any of you were in the December 30 traffic jam. The record traffic jam that Boston had. But I was only on the periphery of it and I waited two hours for a bus and the driver told me when I got on that he had spent he had spent an hour going around two sides of the public God and coming from the pock square town know down child street and up Beacon Street

until he got to the condo where I got on the bus. Now it seems to me that that that that highway traffic is reaching the point where its utility can be seriously questioned. And that's why I say that the populace if they are to get around if this vehicle is to maintain its utility it seems to me and in so far as the city is concerned and even suburbs there must be an alternate system. And I as I look at the national picture I see that some cities are struggling with this. Los Angeles which has the greatest freeway system in the United States is thinking about rapid transit. San Francisco has already voted to tax itself its own citizens including its suburbs for a rapid transit system. They have come to the point where they have recognized them must be an alternate way to get to work. There are the cities of Washington D.C. is approaching the same thing. Washington is in the

midst now of a highway hassle. The land is on the point of being taken and Washingtonians opposed to this and talk there has gone on of a rapid transit system. It seems to me Mr. Hughes that there are at least two levels that we can look at the Memorial Drive question. One is the level that you're suggesting that is of overall solution which I know is it is it is a it is of great concern to many citizens besides those who are listening tonight. It's of great concern to the metropolitan area Planning Council and to other organizations which are tackling the question and trying to work on it. But from all signs that I can see the work of such interested bodies is going to take some time. That is absolutely going to rack up a fair amount of time that's why builders are going on in the meantime you have the pressure of the automobile and you have the pressure as you spoke of contractors who need to have work for their man and work for their companies and so on.

And in the meantime you have the question of Memorial Drive and I would come back then to the question at the second level the short term level of what conceivably Mrs. Wheeler or Mr. Bearnaise do you think can be done by a Cambridge citizens to hold this but say even hold this decision in a Benz How can I when it's not you must run it. As I see it there are three things three strategies or three tactics that are available to us. And every listener can play a part. I'm amazed to find in Massachusetts that the individual citizen has not more feeling about the power he has. I recognize that we live in an atomizer society. I recognize that a man like Eric Frum talks about every individual

citizen being swallowed up in the mass. But it's been fascinating to me in a long lifetime to recognize what one letter what one telegram what one mass meeting what one picketing what one march on Washington for instance that the Negroes did can do in swinging opinion opinion and bringing about public action. What we suggest is the following. Number one for every man to write to all of the decision makers who may play a part in reversing this specific situation such as such as Senator Kennedy. Senator softens Stormont. Kennedy is interested in Lee in the library and as already I understand participated back of the scene such as governor Peabody his fit with his Fitz Fitzgerald head

of the Public Works Department came out against this and then for some reason didn't follow up on his decision the next thing we have in mind is legal action. I think you should ask Mrs. Warner I think you should ask him to write on the local legislature that was always there I still won't be another section and I just like you but that's what I was going to that's realize he's running uphill. Nothing parties were getting back in the pressure groups again I went on something in my chart previous question. Back to the pressure groups run a society and if the pressure of the public comes out for something that's socially sound that is usually a lot more effective than bad pressure. Next we have court action that we can take. The lawyers tell us that when the citizens of Cambridge deeded the riparian land to the city it was done with the carbon and that this would remain a pot

plant. When the Cambridge dated it to the MDC The same was done the lawyers tell us that they have a potential of taxpayers soups or of the city of Cambridge asking for recompense for what was done or getting the land back. Now the third element we have is this. You mean let me just understand you must mr brown eyes and I'd like to ask Mrs. Wheeler to comment on this to you may not recompense in the sense that the land is already being used as a crime not as part of why at the present time. The land Memorial Drive as it is now represents land that the city of Cambridge gave to the state crime with a covenant that it would be used for Parkland in perpetuity. Right. The legislature has now vitiated that carbon and that means that there is a legal case either for taxpayers

or for the city. Now the third one out for an injunction. Well there is no term recompense this is what is right. There is also the fact that the court might grant an injunction but there is another method that can be used and that is that since the drive will not be started until March that is the destruction and the contruction on the drive here a year from now. We believe that the number of votes against various legislation that has been. He introduced him to the legislature to kill this number of votes against us have already gone down from 30 to 20 so that all we need is a leavened vote if the people of Massachusetts saw these realities the way Mr. Blake sees them all the way. The Boston Herald saw them all the way the Boston Globe saw them

editorially. My feeling is and the way the Christian right sees them. My feeling is that all we need to get is to make really enough people of Massachusetts through the state recognize that their legislature or should in the public interest vote against this wanton despoil ation of everything that. Secretary has said and everything that every taxi driver two letter carrier to dean of a law school tells me. Let me ask Mrs. Weaver If you'd like to comment upon possibilities of legal action on the legislative branch that you see from the standpoint of the city council of Cambridge. I think the city of Cambridge as I told you before is really funny aroused to what this will mean to us so I think that we will be ready to use what influence we can.

As you know two of our legislators have been the ones who have been very strongly in favor of this. Now obviously we're not going to be able to change their minds in the next year I'm afraid. But I think that we must make there does the followers of those two legislators understand that this concerns them more than a personal loyalty to those two people who say you know what I want to be very very good mayors and then Mr. Blumenthal when I ask a closing question well I would like to point out that in the case of this particular underpass program I think there's a. A delicate little irony in the whole thing. The MDC recently won a case from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority which forbids which forbad the authority and I presume still forbids the MDC from using any more. Land in the child of a basin. And and I think there was a great deal of applause for that

decision. Well if you look at the underpass program then it means that the MDC is is sort of backed into a corner because it cannot use the river for an underpass programme. Therefore whatever they can set out they can't and they they can't use the river. They must cut back into Cambridge so I hope people remember that there's a very important court decision which which. Will have the effect of taking more of their land rather than more of the river. Thank you very much Mr Hughes I'd like to ask Mr. Blumenthal he may have another comment he'd like to make to give him your objective expert view of this of. What can be done what what will happen in terms of traffic if nothing is done to Memorial Drive at this point. What are the problems you touched on these in terms of the impact of the extension of the Turnpike which I suppose is

an example of what happens when planning for the full impact of something doesn't and doesn't occur. I think two of the highway 93 which empties into Medford here without anywhere to go. At this point and no visible direction for to go in the near future what what would happen if indeed the citizens of Cambridge were able to forestall the developments in Memorial Drive which are now contemplated. There are a combination of things doctor that could take place and actually in the time that's available I don't believe I'm going to be able to cover them all. I will cover somebody. Right. First of all it Reverend West and I do want to call your attention to the fact the traffic commissioner of the city of Cambridge has proposed at River Street and Western Avenue will be made one way. In addition we have which of course does change the traffic pattern automatically. Secondly we have the Massachusetts Turnpike extension which

temporarily will end at Cambridge Street and at that point it is expected that a minimum of 25000 vehicles per day will be interchanged with the turnpike and with the surrounding streets of Cambridge and Boston this is an increased load. This is an increase twenty one first 25000. Therefore these are some of the factors we have to face. Additionally Harvard Square at present is being strangulated by the traffic situation during peak hours and the situation under normal growth will continue until the belt route is constructed or some other bypass of the square inner belt Yes. So these are the factors that you face. Just briefly I won't go into any of the details if I may I would like to comment on some of the more broader of the broader aspects that we have been involved with I thought for a moment we were going to get into the crux of the situation as

it involves transportation when Mr. Hughes brought up the fact that we would we certainly will require. Other types of transportation within specifically metropolitan areas very shortly. And I believe in the US without any question that no transportation system within a large metropolitan area can survive unless it's in the Great. We are fortunate here in Boston to have a backbone of mass transit which is available for our for further expansion. We will need other forms of transportation and these will be carefully studied and evaluate evaluated. One other comment and that involves the so-called pressure groups. A few weeks ago I was thumbing through some old National Geographic magazines. They were really old they went back to the 20s and at that time they were a series of articles which pressured or tempted to pressure the federal government into constructing

roadways into recreational areas and the reason was very simple that the recreational people felt that the public were was not able to reach the recreational facilities and therefore new roadways definitely had to be built in order to reach them. And this was a sustaining campaign that went on for some years. It's a rather like surely you know. It's a rather harsh debate has Mr Blumenthal is suggesting that today's solution may be tomorrow's problem. We have enough problems today to go around I would think this evening's discussion of the Massachusetts viewpoint has centered as you know on Memorial Drive as an example of the difficulties that we have dealing with automobile transportation and other forms of transportation that are needed in the metropolitan area. We have here we've described I think a very real conflict between man and machine. We have heard from Mr. Blumenthal some expert commentary on the traffic

conditions. We have heard from Mr. Bearnaise and Mrs. Wheeler the expressed opposition of citizens both in private capacity and in a public capacity in Cambridge to the president plans for revising and revising Lee present traffic routes along Memorial Drive. Mr. Hughes as an expert on transportation for the Christian Science Monitor has asked penetrating questions with regard to this subject. I am left at the end wondering what indeed can be done. And I think perhaps as Mr. Bernath has suggested the most important immediate thing to happen is for citizens who are concerned with this problem to approach it in ways that he suggested otherwise indeed government has no other choice but to do the best that it can decide to do. I am surprised in our discussion that no one has mentioned trees. But with that as a as it is fully as I as a closer we'd say goodnight on tonight's Massachusetts viewpoint.