Southwest Corridor (Massachusetts)

The Southwest Corridor or Southwest Expressway was a project designed to bring an eight-lane highway into the City of Boston from a direction southwesterly of downtown. It was supposed to connect with Interstate 95 (I-95) at Route 128. As originally designed, it would have followed the right of way of the former Penn Central/New Haven Railroad mainline (current Amtrak Northeast Corridor) running from Readville, north through Roslindale, Forest Hills and Jamaica Plain, where it would have met the also-cancelled I-695 (Inner Belt Expressway). The 50-foot-wide (15 m) median for the uncompleted "Southwest Expressway" would have carried the southwest stretch of the MBTA Orange Line within it, replacing the Washington Street Elevated railway's 1901/1909-built elevated railbed. Another highway, the four-lane South End Bypass, was proposed to run along the railroad corridor between I-695 in Roxbury and I-90 near Back Bay.

The project started in 1948 with Massachusetts Public Works director William F. Callahan's Master Highway Plan for Metropolitan Boston, went through several adjustments and then was killed in 1973 by Governor Francis Sargent, following popular pressure. Governor Sargent declared a moratorium on all expressway construction within Route 128 in 1970 following the recommendation of a task force of private experts he appointed to study controversial highway plans. Having been witness to recent housing clearances for the Interstate 93 expressway and Massachusetts Turnpike, as well as similar projects in New York City and other cities, the population of the affected area was largely unwilling to repeat similar costs for another expressway.

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