> Huge eye roll here. I bet the author would enjoy the quick 10 minutes from 128 to the airport down the pike...

Maybe if you're going 128 mph, but if you follow Google maps it's 17 minutes from 128 to the airport. Likely much, much longer when it isn't midnight. I get a max of 55 minutes during rush hour traffic if I play around with start times.

> The highway was desperately needed at the time (and still needed). There were no viable alternatives at the time and this route was the least destructive too.

Uh, no. Did you miss the part where Alston had 3 fucking train stations at the time? Trains are absolutely a viable option if we dump $20B+ into them like we did with the Big Dig and other urban highway projects. Sprinkle in some pedestrian, bike and bus infrastructure for the last mile and suddenly you have a really nice transportation system that doesn't involve razing people's houses and leaving everyone else with a nasty loud eyesore.