Editorial: MetroWest win

MetroWest lawmakers don't score many victories on Beacon Hill, where they are outnumbered by legislators from other regions and largely excluded from leadership dominated by Boston pols. But they won a round this week, thwarting - at least for now - an attempt to take $10 million from Mass. Pike commuters to pay upkeep on a Boston park.

At issue is the Rose Kennedy Greenway, created - at great expense - on the land left vacant when Boston's Central Artery was replaced by the Big Dig. House Speaker Sal DiMasi filed legislation earlier this year taking the Greenway out of the jurisdiction of the Mass. Pike and providing funds which, along with money raised privately by the Greenway Conservancy, would pay for its maintenance.

But DiMasi's bill would have taken $10 million for the Greenway from the Pike. Already strapped for cash, the Pike couldn't afford it. Besides, as MetroWest legislators - and this page - loudly argued, it just isn't fair to expect Pike commuters to pay an extra penny for a city park few of them will even see.

The Joint Environment Committee reported the bill out last week, but with the Pike payment removed. Instead, the bill provides $2 million from the general fund and expects more money to be raised by the Conservancy.

That decision may say something about the toll recent scandals and inside politics have taken on DiMasi's power. But it is also a credit to the legislators who stood up and screamed "unfair" - and to those who listened to them. As long as the bill stands as rewritten, it should be approved and sent to the governor.