In the comments Charlie asks,
Why is it that politicians refuse to make these simple investments that impact the quality of life for so many people? In the city especially, the state parklands run by the DCR are some of the few green spaces that we have at our disposal. I know that most users of these parks would like to see improvements, but why politically this is so difficult I do not understand.
I haven’t parsed the numbers but my guess is that there’s a division of labor going on. The state takes care of some of the major infrastructure, but have been overly occupied with the Big Dig, so don’t expect much in the near future.
Meanwhile, the city is expected to take up the slack but given $500,000 in its budget is fonder of new, sexier “infrastructure” projects like flower pots and wi-fi in Downtown Crossing. Sadly, I think the difference between traditional infrastructure and creative-class infrastructure maps pretty neatly onto a change from old bread-and-butter machine politics to the New Boston politics. Menino knows he’s not going to get much kudos or press for repainting the B.U. bridge.
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