BOSTON (AP) – The Kennedy family Monday pledged $1 million to the corridor of parks above the Big Dig, ensuring an additional $5 million from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority for the “greenway” where the old elevated Central Artery once cast its shadow.

That means $11.3 million has been raised for the new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, named after the mother of President Kennedy and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

“Our family wanted to be very much a part of this,” Kennedy said at a Monday press conference accented by potted daffodils, tulips, boxwood and evergreen shrubs. “My mother was true blue Boston … She loved parks, and she was a great walker.”

The greenway is designed to be a series of parks and cultural spots running between Causeway and Kneeland streets.

The amount raised so far is about 20 percent of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy’s long-term goal of $50 million, and already $300,000 more than the conservancy, under its own bylaws, was obligated to raise by the end of the year.