I also can't think of a good argument against the NE leg of I-95.
I don't recall if I have mentioned this before here, but the environmental road blocks on that thru Revere and Saugus were significant. My aunt who lived in Revere was one of the ringleaders in stopping it, to the point that she has a plaque at Rumney Marsh (near the US 1/Lynn St interchange) noting her work on stopping 95 being built thru there.
FWIW, most of the Northeast Expressway through Revere itself was already built. IIRC, the embankment for the would-be I-95 through the Rumney Marsh in Saugus was
already present & remained for decades after the plan to build the roadway there & further north was cancelled. Had the Lynn Woods (see below) issue not happened/been addressed differently, the highway would've been fully built IMHO.
Besides what SectorZ already mentioned, I-95 as planned would have also negatively impacted the Lynn Woods.
IIRC, most of the proposed alignments I saw for the Lynn Woods stretch of I-95 would've had the corridor going through the easternmost portions. While it certainly would've impacted Lynn Woods
to a degree; it wasn't like it was going through the center of the woods. If one moved the corridor further east, away from Lynn Woods, a lot more homes would've been impacted. Such was why the corridor location was originally selected.
So the stopped I-95, but U.S. 1 north of the Tobin Bridge nearly as far north as Danvers is treated as if it were I-95 by Massachusetts drivers (in other words drive fast and have no expectation of having to come to a halt).
FWIW, there was a plan, in one of the various reports from the early 70s, to have I-95 built
within the US 1 corridor from the Peabody/Danvers line to Copeland Circle (MA 60). Such would've functioned as a dual-carriageway, express/local highway: Express lanes would be I-95, the Local lanes would be US 1. Needless to say, that proposal/compromise went nowhere.
Such may have been the reason why the partial I-95/US 1 interchange in Peabody/Danvers (current Exit 66 off I-95) was built the way it was & why the ramp from I-95 southbound meets US 1 southbound
on the left. Originally, the interchange was planned to have the
opposite movements (I-95 northbound to US 1 northbound/US 1 southbound to I-95 southbound) of what's there today.
If one looks very closely,
this little driveway-like ramp shown at the left along I-95 southbound would've been where the originally planned ramp from US 1 southbound to I-95 southbound would've ended.