INT: Talk about convincing Dukakis.

FS: Immediately after Governor Dukakis became governor following Governor Sargent, the governor's priority was to get all of the transit to really happen. I mean there had been a very bold change in direction made by Governor Sargent. Governor Dukakis agreed with that change in direction, in fact, had advocated a shift towards transit, and Dukakis wanted to be sure that I stayed focused on getting the transit built. He was concerned that the artery might be a distraction. He was also, I think, somewhat concerned with whether there was going to be traffic disruption, notwithstanding the fact that we seemed to have a technical way to deal with that.

So the governor did have concerns, particularly about the wisdom of pursuing both at the same time. He asked Frank Keefe, who was his sort of economic development coordinator who coordinated several of the cabinet secretaries, myself, environmental affair, economic affairs, et cetera. He asked Frank Keefe essentially for a second opinion. He said, "Does this crazy thing Salvucci's doing make any sense?" And Keefe reviewed and went back to Governor Dukakis with a recommendation that this, indeed, makes a lot of sense and that we should pursue it, that the interstate highway funding that the artery is eligible for did not compete with the funding for the transit project and that we ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time and basically pursue both.

So it did take Governor Dukakis some time to warm up to this idea, because he was, I think, legitimately concerned that it was a very large, ambitious transit agenda. He wanted to be sure that got rolling fast and first. In fact, it did, and if you'll notice the way the project has unfolded, the big transit improvements were almost all essentially completed by 1987 well before we actually started on the digging of the Big Dig. Now had we not been delayed by the Reagan Administration, the Big Dig would have begun at the tail end of the big transit construction

FS: So basically the way the timing, in fact, has worked out on the project, the major subway expansion was substantially complete at the point in time when the Big Dig begins. That's very useful for more than one reason. For one thing, the subway construction was very sophisticated tunneling and it had the effect of proving to the public that we really had the competency in our construction community to do very complicated underground work without shutting the city down. So the sequencing of the transit coming first, and this highway tunneling coming later was useful from a policy point of view 'cause it gave the emphasis to public transportation that Governor Dukakis wanted, which I think the region needed, but, secondly, it also had the effect of really demonstrating to people that this construction technology really could work, that that all of these complicated things -- slurry wall construction and et cetera -- you know, they didn't just hear these catch words; they physically saw that these tunnels had gotten built and that the city had managed to function reasonably well through the construction.

INT: Talk about convincing Frank Keefe of the worthwhileness of the project.

FS: Well, naturally since the governor had asked Frank Keefe to give a second opinion, I did my best to influence that second opinion by going and talking to Frank, making sure he understood exactly what we were proposing and why I felt it was both feasible and that it had major economic benefit. So, I mean, to me, you can't sell ice to Eskimos. The only way to sell something is based on better understanding of what it is you're talking about. If the project has real merit, and I think this one does, it'll tend to sell itself. So the basic approach is you just make sure that people understand what this'll do and why that's benefit. And I was lucky with Frank because Frank's a very smart guy. [T]he key, I think, for Frank [was] the interstate highway funding that we were eligible for was totally independent of the transit funds that we were using to do the subway. So this was additional investment in the economy and additional strengthening the infrastructure and that's very positive. So I was real happy that Frank agreed that this was a good project and helped to convince the governor that we should go forward.

INT: Give me a sense of the ten years of persuading you had to do to get everybody on board.

FS: Let me put it this way: You can win an election 51-49. You cannot get a large public works project underway with a 51-49 constituency. You need to have well over 90 percent of the public really with you, because there are so many procedural points where a project can be stopped that if any significant constituency at all feels offended and has a particular problem with a project, chances are they'll be able to stop it and particularly on the large project which has to be implemented through more than one administration. Every time you have a change in administration, you have a lot of changes in the people involved, and there's a lot of vulnerability in the project to having it derailed. So to get something to really happen, my view is you really need to have over 90 percent of the public really with you in a serious way and you have to go through a process of explaining the project. You can't really sell people. You can't sell ice to the Eskimos. The project has to sell itself, but you have to think through what the concerns of the various constituencies are going to be and why the project is good for them, or at least not bad for them, and get people on board. If you fail to do that, sooner or later the project is likely to get bogged down and stopped. That's been my experience.

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