Where the blue herons brood

A surprising Mass. DCR masterpiece

Ask any hiker in Massachusetts about the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), and you will get one of two responses—an exasprated sigh, or a gallows smirk followed by, “You mean the Department of Cars and Roads?” Formed by Mitt Romney in 2003, Mass. DCR was a merger of the Department of Environmental Management, which oversaw green spaces, and the Metropolitan District Commission, which took care of roads that bordered green spaces or cleaved right through them. And just like your garden variety corporate merger, the consolidation of the agencies has yielded rather shitty results for those who enjoy utilizing the Bay State’s leafier open spaces.