The Boston Globe reports that some Harvard neighbors are ticked off at the university for failing to repair an Allston street that it was supposed to have fixed, oh, ten years ago. A decade ago, Harvard pledged to replace the sidewalk and a chain-link fence bounding Harvard athletic fields, as well as plant dozens of trees along the road, which runs from the Charles River into Allston.

Last month, neighbors complained that no trees had been planted, while the crumbling sidewalk and rusted fence remain, and the city agency overseeing Harvard's expansion plans ordered the university to make the promised improvements immediately. They have not yet done so, and for some neighbors the university's inaction symbolizes a broader indifference to neighborhood concerns.

This seems bizarrely and inexplicably foolish of Harvard: Why blow off something so small when you have much bigger fish to fry, and these things can come back to haunt you?

The Globe quotes Kevin McCluskey, Harvard's director of community relations, saying [apparently] that ten years ain't so long, really.

"You don't go out overnight and rip up a sidewalk," he said. "If you look at projects of this kind," the current plan to make improvement within a few weeks "is pretty quick."

Is it just me, or is the Allston project beginning to hit some bumps in the road in terms of community support?