Ghastly weather for a marathon, innit?

On this Patriots' Day two stories caught my eye, both essentially about Boston's priorities under Menino. The first was about how Boston has gone from being ranked #5 among most walkable cities just two years ago to #31 today (on the latest Best Walking Cities list created by the American Podiatric Medical Association and Prevention Magazine).

As the story in The Globe reports, the slippage may be partly due to the weather here, but the magazine also said it "wants to recognize cities that are aggressively remaking themselves to become more pedestrian-friendly," and Boston under Menino seems to have other priorities. Many other priorities. Any other priorities.

Jeff Rosenblum over at Livable Streets is quoted at length in the Globe piece, and as always has something sensible to say.

The other piece that caught my eye was the lead editorial about preserving City Hall. I think calling it "a modern masterpiece" is overstating the case a bit, but I agree that the city should leave it, and focus on other, more important things.

Menino has a building fetish—it's pretty clear that that's how he wants to leave his mark on the city. But the colossal cost of relocating a bunch of bureaucrats in a shiny new building on the Harbor should give pause. This city has so many other more pressing problems that aren't being adequately addressed by its leadership.

Let the old brutalist monument stay. At least until we get a city government that it doesn't symbolize so well. Let's get the order right: first the visionary transparent government dedicated to renewal—then the visionary transparent building.

To do it the other way around is putting the cart before the horse.