We tried this about 10 years ago, didn't we?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the idea sort of shut down because it would take away union jobs?
There was a lot of speculation in those discussions, but we never really got a solid answer.
Regardless of the actual reasons, i think it comes down to standards and funding. i know of a park here that had some broken steps for the longest time, and the people complaining in neighborhood boards meetings and writing to Parks & Rec never saw any action. The steps were a safety hazard and created a mud puddle in the rain. As it was a well-used path for visitors from the local apartments and homes, people used that path through the fence rather than walk one-third of the way around the park to enter.
So, one guy took it upon himself to build a replacement set of steps. Nothing fancy, but way better than the broken ones.
The city tore them down and said it was because they didn't meet code for proper rise & run as well as handrails. It took another few months for them to get the "city approved" steps installed.
As the article said, the park managers want to make sure the work gets done the right way so it complies with codes and standards. The issue is they never seem to want to work WITH anyone who's willing to help. i think part of that is they don't know the requirements themselves, so they rely on contract/union labor to do the work to code and inspectors to make sure it complies. They have a system they want/need to follow, but funding -- that second part -- isn't always adequate to pay for all the little projects. The bigger projects take all the funding, and nothing is left for the little things that make a park nice.
It looks like a cultural problem to me. The culture of big government -- paying too many employees to figure out what projects are too low on the list to get funding. You'll never see their own salaries or pet projects at the bottom of that list.