Udall Voices Concern Over Underpasses

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has given his tacit encouragement to opponents of the proposed underpasses along Memorial Drive.

In a letter to Edward L. Bernays, a leading organizer of the anti-underpass campaign. Udall said that while he was not familiar with the specific road plans. "You are certainly to be congratulated on your energetic efforts to alert your community, so that all who will be most affected can take a good at look at what is about to happen."

Bernays hopes to use the letter to enlist the support of key legislators in the battle to approve two bills that would delay construction of the underpasses. He said that the letter was currently the most powerful weapon in the anti-underpass arsenal.

Copies of the letter have been sent to the Boston Glebe and the Christian Science Monitor, and Bernays expects that it will be reprinted in the near future. In addition, other copies will be sent to all the members of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives, he said.

One of the anti-underpass bills, H2112, will be considered on the floor of the House today. Bernays estimates that it will be necessary to change the votes of at least 16 legislators if the measure is to pass. Three anti-underpass bills have already failed to clear the legislature.

Campaign of Correspondence

Since these defeats on Feb. 17, sentiment may have shifted, however, Cambridge citizens then began a campaign to have friends from outside of the city write their legislators urging that the new bills be supported. According to Rep. William P. Homans '41 (D-Cambridge), a sponsor of both bills, the drive has produced "quite a lot of correspondence."

Another bill, H1444, will probably come before the House next week. This measure would set up a Greater Boston Transportation Agency to investigate thoroughly the transporation problems of the entire Boston area; H2112 would only have the Metropolitan Area Planning Council study five different road proposals in the Cambridge area.

Both bills, however, would delay the building of the underpasses until the comprehensive investigations were completed. Such investigations might also lead to the total abandonment of the underpasses, it is thought.

Bernays said last night that he thought chances for the passage of H1444 were probably better than those of H2112. The Udall letter, he commented, would have the added time to affect the legislators.