The River Current

|| The River Current || June 7, 2004 || Issue XI

The mostly monthly e-newsletter of the Charles River
Watershed Association
...bringing our backyard river to your door...


TAKE ACTION ON BEHALF OF OUR PARKWAYS


Dear friends of the Charles-
Budget season on Beacon Hill is a busy time for citizens like
you who care about the future of our urban environment.
Today, we are again asking you to take action on the behalf
of our parks. CRWA has joined with nine other advocacy
groups to endorse leaving all responsibilities for care,
control and maintenance of the parkways with the Department
of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).


Please call your local representative and senator and ask
them to contact members of the Budget Conference Committee to
request adoption of the House Budget version which leaves all
parkway responsibilities with DCR. Your representative and
senator will know who the conferees are. You can find phone
numbers and email addresses for your legislators here.


These are our main concerns about transferring control of the
parkways from DCR to Mass Highway: the Parkways are part of a
park system so their care should remain in a parks agency;
Mass Highway road and safety standards might be required on
Parkways, destroying their unique historic character; the
Parkways require specially trained crews and equipment, so
cost savings are not likely to be significant; Mass Highway
is often not sensitive to neighborhood concerns; and
finally, there are significant Parkways issues that Mass
Highway might not be willing or able to address as well or
appropriately as a parks agency, including transportation use
of Parkways, road closures, removing lanes, the volume of
salt application, pesticide use, vista pruning, etc.


These concerns have always led Parkways advocates to oppose
any transfer, and the legislature has always affirmed this in
legislation.


For talking points for contacting your state legislator,
please click here.


To read more about control of the parkways, read a letter
sent to our legislators regarding this issue, and to let CRWA
know that you contacted your legislator, please click here.


We are happy to join with the following organizations in
support of DCR's control of the parkways: Arborway Coalition,
Boston Greenspace Alliance, Charles River Conservancy,
Environmental League of Massachusetts, Emerald Necklace
Conservancy, Emerald Necklace Greenway Project, Esplanade
Association, Friends of the Blue Hills, and Friends of the
Middlesex Fells Reservation.