Former governors Michael Dukakis and William Weld sat in Governor Charlie Baker’s fourth-floor conference room at the State House on Wednesday, ringed by televisions and white boards, and made their pitch: it is time, they argued, to build a long-sought tunnel that would connect North Station and South Station.

The meeting, which ran nearly an hour and included a Google Earth map of the proposal, said something about the access afforded former chief executives on Beacon Hill. But the aftermath said something about the limits of their influence.

The Boston Globe