Mass. Gen. Laws » Part I Title XIV Chapter 92
Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 92, § 37 (2026)

Rules and regulations for government and use of reservations or boulevards; penalty

✓ current as of July 2026
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Section 37. Except as provided in section 38, the commissioner, in consultation with the director, may make rules and regulations for the government and use of the reservations, roads, driveways, parkways, boulevards or bridges under the division's care and to govern the public use of the Charles river, the Neponset river and the Mystic river, within the urban park district, and of the ponds and other waters along which it holds abutting lands for reservations in said district; provided, that no rule or regulation shall affect the water rights of any person, whether a mill owner or otherwise. No such rule or regulation shall prohibit the use of passenger or station wagon type motor vehicles whose gross weight is less than 5000 pounds and which are registered for commercial use, on ways, parkways or boulevards where non-commercial passenger-type motor vehicles are permitted to operate. No such rule or regulation shall provide for the collection of any charge or fee for parking on any boulevard, roadway, parkway, way or any portion thereof, under the jurisdictional care, custody or control of the commissioner, between regularly established curb lines or that part, exclusive of shoulders, improved and intended to be open and used for vehicular traffic by the public on a public way unless the commissioner has received prior approval from the local appropriating authority, as defined in section 21C of chapter 59, of the municipality in whose boundaries such charge or fee is collected on or after January 1, 2021. Any municipal approval of any rule or regulation providing for the collection of such charge or fee for parking prior to January 1, 2021 shall be inoperative for the purposes of this section.

A police officer employed by a city or town in whose boundaries, reservations, roads, driveways, parkways, boulevards or bridges are located shall have all the same powers they have as a police officer of the city or town to enforce the laws of the commonwealth and the rules and regulations of the department on any bikeway, pathway, park, reservation or other land under the care of the division.

The division shall cause such rules and regulations to be posted in the reservation, road, driveway, parkway, boulevard or bridge to which they apply, and shall also cause the same to be published at least once in a newspaper published in the county where said reservation, road, driveway, parkway, boulevard or bridge is in whole or in part situated, and such posting and publication shall be sufficient notice to all persons. The sworn certificate of the director of such posting and publishing shall be prima facie evidence thereof.

Whoever violates any rule or regulation made hereunder shall be punished by fine not exceeding $200.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 4 cases, 1926–2000 · leading case: Anzalone v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, 153 N.E. 325 (Mass. 1926).
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Anzalone v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, 153 N.E. 325 (Mass. 1926). “By G. L. c. 92, § 37, giving the commission authority to make rules and regulations for the government and use of the reservations or boulevards under its care, the Legislature did not give it an arbitrary power to deprive abutting owners of an easement conferred either by grant…”
Burke v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, 159 N.E. 739 (Mass. 1928). “The record does not disclose whether any general rule or regulation relating to such matters has been adopted by the commission under the authority granted by G. L. c. 92, § 37. The petitioner’s grantor, in conveying the land for a park and reserving the right of access to a way…”
Poppel v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co., 155 N.E. 267 (Mass. 1927). “92, § 35, “shall have the same rights and powers over and in regard to said boulevards as are or may be vested in it in regard to reservations and shall also have such rights and powers in regard to the same as, in general, counties, cities and towns have over public ways under…”
Kemble v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, 727 N.E.2d 529 (Mass. App. Ct. 2000). “First, the regulation defines the word “sidewalk” solely in order to address the matter of how parking is to be managed on commission property, a purpose squarely within the commission’s proper purview as set forth in G. L. c. 92, § 37. Promulgating regulations for the use of…”
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