Beautifying Boston in a brand new century.

• Position: Massachusetts - Parks - Brief Article

A network of great parks has long been promised as the Crown Jewel of Boston's massive Central Artery Project. Now CLF is laboring to ensure that this promise is fulfilled, and that the parks function as common ground--for the people of Boston and beyond. The elevated artery will soon be removed, and the parks (six or seven acres' worth) will be laid out on 27 acres of land that lie beneath and beside it. House Bill 5242 was formulated to control the governance and funding structure of the parks, but CLF had significant problems with the bill, so we joined with several other organizations and convinced state leaders not to pass it in the legislative session that ended in August.

Among the bill's shortcomings:

* It didn't ensure that the Project's commitment to building parks on the designated park parcels would be honored

* It would have created a real estate development agency with control over the commercial development of several parcels, when what is really needed is a...