The Cambridge City Council last week gave initial approval to the University's plan for a $2 million underpass to be constructed along Cambridge St. from Memorial Hall to Littauer Center.

The complete development plan will permit the University to construct a pleasantly landscaped pedestrian link between the Yard and the Law School campus and will remove a traffic bottleneck at the intersection of Kirkland and Cambridge Streets.

According to L. Gard Wiggins, administrative vice-president of the University, constructions is scheduled to begin sometime next spring and will take between a year and 12 months to complete.

Under the plan, the 22,000 sq. ft. will be closed and part of the land used. Harvard hopes, in its new building program. The University will in turn give up three slices of land, one in front of Littauer and the others on the Quincy St. and Cambridge St. Side of the triangular plot of land occupied by Memorial Hall. The total 11,500 sq. ft. involved will be used to widen Quincy and Cambridge Streets.

The Widening process will involve the removal of the trees along the Memorial Hall sides of Quincy and Cambridge Streets. Herald L. Goyette, planning officer in the Harvard Planning Office, explained that that didn't bother the University, since the trees were all elms, and very susceptible to disease.