Hey, there! Log in / Register

Looks like we're going to find out what six months' worth of doggie-poop bags looks like

Closed trash receptacles on the Esplanade

A roving UHub photographer noticed DCR's announcement that it won't be emptying the trash receptacles on the Esplanade from now until April:

Looks like some slob has already started what will probably end up being a mountain of dog waste bags by April 1. What gives?

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

 

up
Voting closed 0

What the heck is that about???

up
Voting closed 0

Disregarding Cr#**y Refuse.

up
Voting closed 0

They have been taking the barrels away for years. Since they put the solar trash cans i guess they can't take them away

up
Voting closed 0

Does the Charles River Watershed Association know about this?

Dog waste is a pretty serious and substantial contributor to poor water quality.

E coli blooms a go go!

up
Voting closed 0

Ever see what the bins look like after the 4th of July? That's how it will look for months in about a week.

up
Voting closed 0

Idiotic policy. That's the most heavily used park in the state, even in the winter. It's even plowed when it snows. (Or used to be.)

up
Voting closed 0

But DCR doesn't pay for the plowing, New Balance has to pay. And DCR has the Esplanade Association pay for maintaining the park. So...unless someone else coughs up the money, the state really doesn't care about this park, other than spending money on clearing and maintaining Storrow Drive.

up
Voting closed 0

wonder if it will take an Arlo Guthrie protege to resolve the situation before five months?

http://www.universalhub.com/2017/getting-ready-noon

up
Voting closed 0

Before people bothered to pick up after their dogs, I used to cross the Common every day on my way to school. The first warm day in late Winter was bad. Really bad. All the poop thawed out and began to stink, all at the same time.

up
Voting closed 0

What a terrible idea. This isn't a 3rd world country. It'd be great if people picked up all the trash that will accumulate and dumped it in the mayors parking spot. I'd be glad to pitch in.

up
Voting closed 0

DCR is a state agency, not the City of Boston. And the DCR commissioner is a gubernatorial appointment.

Just be sure not to leave an envelope with your name on it at the bottom of the half-ton of the plastic doggie-do bags.

up
Voting closed 0

The way to get things done in the DCR is to go through their boss, Energy and Environmental Affairs. Try DCR first, then go over their head.

up
Voting closed 0

On one hand we have the state park agency trying to save money by not emptying trash bins for six months. On the other hand we have Congress planning to give the biggest tax cut in generations which is specifically to help the largest corporations and wealthiest citizens. (None of whom will use their tax savings to improve public parks.)

Yes, different beaches and levels of government, etc. but something is seriously wrong when these are the national priorities.

up
Voting closed 0

How can anyone who takes the time to read this blog and post comments not know that the DCR is a state agency?

up
Voting closed 0

seems like an outstanding idea.

up
Voting closed 0

"this seems like a shitty idea"

up
Voting closed 0

We need the thumbs up button back

up
Voting closed 0

would thumbs up.

up
Voting closed 0

Those signs have been up at least 2 weeks, and the trash pile was larger last week, meaning someone's occasionally picking it up.

But still, it's a really dumb idea.

up
Voting closed 0

Thanks Baker! Are you stopping trash removal from all over the State, or just those commie public parks? Im sure this will dramatically change the state budget.

up
Voting closed 0

A few months back Adam posted an article from the Hyde Park Bulletin where the DCR said that they don't handle trash in their parks in the area because the policy is "carry in-carry out." I pondered whether this was also the policy for the Esplanade. I guess it is.

Two things- First, you get what you pay for. The Commonwealth (the DCR is a state agency, Kinopio) has been running deficits for years, and unlike the feds, they have to actually balance their books. This is how they balance them.

Second, this show the insanity of merging the MDC, which handled urban parks, with the state park system. The policies for Borderlands State Park really cannot apply to, say, Revere Beach.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah, sure, urban and suburban and rural parks are different, as are forests and beaches.

That isn't even the problem with the DCR.

The problem is that we have a recreation agency that thinks it is a road building agency. That is a huge problem with the whole thing.

They are doing work that MassDOT is far better equipped to do ... and to do in the 21st century rather than be stuck in the 20th.

DCR should stick to parks and recreation with a better budget, and MassDOT should take over the roadways.

up
Voting closed 0

You can't say it's okay not to pick up trash because there is a deficit. There will always be budget problems, find some other way to save money. Any time the government is responsible for emptying barrels the job is given to someone's idiot nephew who's goal in life is to do as little as possible.

up
Voting closed 0

The provision of a sewage disposal system is something the government should have a hand in, but by and large trash is not handled this way. Sure, in Boston we don't pay directly for the contracted garbagemen to take our waste, but in smaller community you pay for someone to handle "the most basic function of society."

If you ask me, public safety is the most basic function of society. But if you think differently, perhaps we could lay off a bunch of state troopers and shift the funds to the guys who empty the barrels. Just don't gripe too much when crime goes up.

up
Voting closed 0

Lay off 5 troopers and put 5 DCR workers. 1 on the Esplanade and the others rotating elsewhere. I might not get pulled over for speeding but I doubt there will be ant effect upon crime.

They don't call the Staties Triple A with a badge for nothing.

Sure, we might miss a few DUI's on the highways but what do you think troopers on patrol do? they're not preventing squat.

up
Voting closed 0

Second, this show the insanity of merging the MDC, which handled urban parks, with the state park system.

Wasn't the MDC basically full of of do-nothing patronage jobs?

up
Voting closed 0

But wouldn’t reform had been better? The result hasn’t helped urban parks.

up
Voting closed 0

Only now maybe the construction crews that are allowed to take all the spaces in the main lot could help out and clean up a little seeing how they monopolize the main parking lot now.

up
Voting closed 0

There's parking at this location? Where? I mean, I do know that they close one of the travel lanes when something is going on at the Hatch Shell, but usually the assumption is that one walks to the Esplanade. Or at least that's what I thought.

up
Voting closed 0

The Lot in Allston is full of the cars of the construction workers.

Unfortunately the whole place is trashy. I tried picking it up it this summer but it's endless, strained my back and poison ivy. Once you bag it also there's no place to dump it.

up
Voting closed 0

This photo is of the Esplanade to the east of the Harvard Bridge in the Back Bay. That's as far from the Allston lot as my house in Roslindale is from where this photo was taken.

I mean, if we are going to randomly gripe about DCR facilities unrelated to the article at hand, how about the toilets being closed at Wells State Park. I got caught unprepared a bunch of Novembers ago and had to do something I was not too proud about.

edit- I gave an exact location of where the photo was take which was, upon further review, wrong. Still, not close to Allston.

up
Voting closed 1

Just so I’m clear, we’re mad at the DCR for (what I assume is a lack of funds) and not picking up trash, but we’re not mad at the people that litter or just pile their trash there regardless? I forgot... nobody takes responsibility for their own actions. Of course it’s an inconvenience, but maybe people should just not suck, and just take their trash with them. If that’s too much to ask, then don’t use the damn esplanade.

up
Voting closed 0

Sure, everyone could "carry in, carry out" at the Esplanade. And people could bring their own drinking water, too.

But regularly serviced trash cans and working drinking fountains are entirely reasonable expectations for a public park in a wealthy state in a first-world country. We pay taxes at a rate that is supposed to support first-world amenities, and DCR is failing to provide the amenities for which we are paying.

up
Voting closed 0

How many people walk along the Esplanade on an average day during these 5 months? Not an insignificant number. Especially in the shoulder seasons.

Also, note that they haven't blocked off the recycle bin. Some nasty trash is inevitably going to end up in there.

up
Voting closed 0

Heard yesterday that the Esplanade Association has been working on this and that it sounds like at least four trashcans at major entrances are being reopened.

up
Voting closed 0