In the 1950s and 1960s, as Boston was busy razing the West End and plunging ahead with urban renewal, transportation planners were pushing a highway known as the Inner Belt, an 8-lane bypass allowing drivers to avoid a short stretch of Interstate 93, the Central Artery, through downtown. There was already one beltway – Route 128 – but that highway was a generous loop from Dedham south of Boston to Wellesley and on up to Lynnfield and Gloucester on the North Shore. Entirely inadequate for the age of the automobile, the planners said.
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