Get real on the Greenway

The folks who run the Rose Kennedy Greenway were hoping the state would subsidize park operations with a direct appropriation for at least another 10 years, the Herald reported this week. With all due respect, what part of “self-supporting” does this outfit not understand?

The Conservancy knew this day would eventually come — when state officials would make good on their promise to reduce state taxpayer funding of the nonprofit that runs the downtown Boston park.

One big warning came five years ago, when the Patrick administration ordered the Conservancy to devise a plan to wean itself off public funding within five years. The Baker administration issued its own warnings that the annual subsidy would be reduced. (Currently the state provides $2 million of the Conservancy’s $5 million annual budget.)

A working group has been trying to develop a plan for future public support of the Greenway. But at Monday’s meeting of the Mass. Department of Transportation board, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said the administration was “not happy” with the Conservancy’s initial proposal, which called for “another 10 years of subsidies.”

Yes, the Greenway is a wonderful public asset. But a flat subsidy for park operations was never the plan, and is a luxury state taxpayers can’t afford in perpetuity.

State officials have been discussing an approach that would provide capital funding for specific long-term improvements at the park, rather than a direct appropriation to be spent in whatever way the Conservancy pleases (in the past those funds haven’t always been spent wisely — or transparently). Sounds like an entirely reasonable arrangement.