While the highway construction boom proved to be fortunate for the suburban communities these new roadways passed through, the economy of Boston was still in a fragile state. Realizing that Boston still needed to be connected to the Turnpike to help reverse its flagging economy and reputation as a municipal has-been, Callahan was tasked in 1955 by the Legislature to create an extension into the city designed to facilitate a turnaround of the city's fortunes. This new highway would connect the Massachusetts Turnpike to the heart of the city with a 12.3-mile extension of the Interstate. It was his plan to bring the tolled Turnpike from its terminus at Route 128 in West Newton into the city along the path of the Boston and Albany Railroad and connect it to the Southeast Expressway. This plan was in line with the 1948 Master Highway Plan for the city, which had always called for a Western Expressway to be built into the city. However, with the passage of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956, the Federal Government provided sufficient funds to the states to construct new highways with a ninety percent subsidy—rendering the need for a toll road into the city obsolete.