The third key constituency is the downtown business community in Boston. This is a constituency that has been arguing since the mid '60s that they need a new tunnel to the airport. They think the artery idea is expensive. They're not convinced it's feasible. They're worried that the city's going to shut down during construction. And he says two things to that constituency. First is, you're going to get your tunnel but you're only going to get your tunnel if you support my artery depression. … We have to make this decision within nine months. So there's a ticking time bomb and if you don't do what I say, you're never going to get what you want. The second thing he says to them is, look, construction technology is such that we can do this without being greatly disruptive to downtown Boston. We think we can get federal money for this, so it's not going to cost a lot of money. So if you think about this for ten minutes, you're going to say you can improve highway access to downtown Boston. You're going to get rid of this elevated highway and replace it with--we don't know whether it's going to be a park or small-scale development--but whatever it is, it's going to look nicer than what's there now. It's going to make your property more valuable and, by the way, the design opens up this area of South Boston waterfront where several of you would like to develop in the future. It ought to be a no-brainer for you. And the business community figures this out pretty quickly. They hired a consultant who came back and he said look, this is really easy. We're exporting an idea to Washington and we're importing money for a highway project. It's a no-brainer.

DL: Salvucci argues in 1983 that due to some interesting machinations that the state had done quietly with Federal Highway Administration in the '70s and '80s, the project is eligible for funding from the interstate highway program. The Reagan Administration, which is trying to cut domestic spending, says we don't think that that's right. We don't think this project is eligible and given that gray zone, the Reagan Administration, I think, is sitting there saying, why should we send lots and lots of federal money to Massachusetts which is governed by a Democrat and is represented in congress by people that, at least ideologically, we have some difference with; Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neill who, at the time, is the national leader of the Democratic Party.

DL: It's absolutely critical to have - particularly to have - O'Neill on board. The good news for Massachusetts is you have the speaker and O'Neill makes it very clear that he wants this project made eligible for federal funding. And the bad news is that because it's O'Neill's project, it becomes a very convenient target for the Reagan Administration and for its allies in congress to point out as an example of the kind of pork barrel spending that Ronald Reagan was supposedly trying to stop. The Reagan Administration is saying this project is not part of the interstate highway system. It is not on the original maps. We've never approved the plans for it and it's basically a phenomenally expensive urban beautification project. And therefore, we think on its merits, both legally and from a transportation point-of-view the project shouldn't be funded with federal money. If Massachusetts wants to do this with its own nickel, that's fine with us but we don't think this is a project that's part of the interstate highway system.

The Massachusetts response is, with the help of Speaker O'Neill in the mid '70s, we got this included in a relatively technical document called the Interstate Cost Estimate, although they argued at the time that that was a mere technicality but the law's very clear, if you're in the Interstate Cost Estimate, you're part of the Interstate Highway Program and we think this project has tremendous transportation benefits. O'Neill, on several occasions, holds up some national highway legislation arguing that I'm not going to let this legislation go through until we resolve this problem. The Reagan Administration can block him, and they have to keep making a series of sort of six-month and one-year compromises to revisit this problem. And ultimately, O'Neill can't get everything he wants unilaterally. The Reagan Administration can't get everything it wants--excuse me, the Reagan Highway Administration can't get everything it wants unilaterally. They agree to a quiet compromise. Reagan in vetoing the law that has this compromise in it, overrules his own Highway Administration and says no. I think this is a terrible project because he's trying to make a larger political statement in 1987.

DL: There's this interesting quirk. The Federal Highway Administration makes a compromise with the state. They find a way to compromise. It's because you can't have national highway legislation without solving this particular problem. But the Federal Highway Administrator had never cleared that compromise with either the Secretary of Transportation or the Reagan White House. Reagan, at this particular point in time, is knee deep in the Iran Contra mess and there was this whole question about whether or not the president was senile, whether he was capable of being president, and so he uses this highway bill which passes in the beginning of 1987, the Democrats have just retaken the Senate. So they're making this statement that we're going to make domestic policy. Reagan is trying to make a counter-statement that says no, I'm President. I'm engaged. I'm here and this is why it's important because if I can't get my vetoes sustained then those Democrats are going to run wild and what we've done for the last seven years will be for naught.

DL: The Federal Highway Administrator makes a compromise with the State of Massachusetts because that's the only way they're going to get a national highway bill passed. But he doesn't clear that compromise with either the Secretary of Transportation or with the senior officials in the Reagan Administration.

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