A comprehensive plan for improving traffic in the growing Boston urban area was submitted to the Metropolitan Improvements Commission in 1909 by Shurtleff, a visionary landscape architect. His scheme was simple, logical, and much ahead of its time.

He proposed widening the radial roads emanating from the core and intersecting them with a series of concentric ring roads. Shown here are the existing and proposed circumferential roads.

A half century before Routes 128 and 495 would be completed, their necessity had been anticipated.

Biographical note: né Shurtleff, name changed in 1930.