One Blight Down, One To Go

"Boston learned hard lessons about the costs of serving its downtown core with a modern expressway system as the Central Artery and Massachusetts Turnpike Extension sliced through the historic fabric of the city's neighborhoods.

In response, Boston forged a powerful confluence of engineering talent, political will, and federal funding that turned the Central Artery from a blight to a blessing, creating 27 acres of public open space downtown and opening dozens more acres in South Boston to new economic development. Most important, with the car mostly underground, it no longer blights the urban landscape downtown, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway stands as a magnificent exemplar of the kind of 21st-century city building that can occur when the automotive sins of the past are buried. Now Boston must turn its sights on the elimination of the Massachusetts Turnpike Extension."