Dogs in Boston

A regular correspondent alerted us to a proposal to introduce legal unfenced off-leash areas to Boston Common, the oldest city park in the United States. The parks has about 6% of the area of Central Park. To avoid dogs ruining the grass as they've already done in their current wink-and-nod offleash area, it seems that the dog people want to make an official unfenced area with lots of trees the off-leash area. Apparently, nobody is concerned about dog urine killing the trees, which of course will happen. In any event, we did a little research and found this December, 2008 report of a Boston City Council committee on Boston Common. Here's what the report says about dogs:

The Boston Common has been scattered with dogs and dog owners walking and playing at a number of locations. Dogs are let off leash, often running away from their owners, becoming a danger to themselves and to others around them – in particular to cyclists and runners swerving to avoid them. Dogs have been known to run into traffic at the corner Beacon and Charles Streets. Owners allow their dogs to play on grassy areas that are also used as passive activity space which can be a health risk.

In preparing the report, the city council members visited a couple of parks in NYC that have fenced dog-runs, and liked what they saw. They seem not to have visited Central Park, Prospect Park or any other of the NYC's other unfenced dog runs.