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An East Boston street gets its 24-hour parking restrictions back
By adamg on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 8:36am
The East Boston Times reports on Webster Street, where residents were startled to see the city change that recently to allow overnight parking on weekends for non-residents and two-hour parking during weekdays. With the help of City Councilor Lydia Edwards, that didn't last long.
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Comments
Legal space saver
Who needs a cone when you have city hall?
Ok so when will Boston
Ok so when will Boston provide visitor parking passes like Cambridge/Somerville ?? How are people supposed to visit ???
Drivers get enough hand outs
Drivers get enough hand outs already. They can take the T, bike, walk or pay for their own parking.
I don't think this is a good fight for you
Basically, there are two sides. One one side, there are the local drivers asking that out-of-town drivers be banned from parking on the streets near where the live so they'd have a chance to get a place to leave their cars on the street (and before you go on about people's desire to park in front of their houses, in several neighborhoods with resident parking, drivers concede that they are lucky to be able to park on the same street that they live on.) On the other side, there are the out-of-town drivers asking to be able to park, for whatever reason, in the neighborhood. There could be good reasons (I'd like to go to Santarpio's some night, but I would rather not have to budget 90 minutes each way, so if I could park, I'd go) or not so good reasons (people drive in from the burbs, park, and T into work or worse, fly out of Logan.)
I just not see you having a dog in this fight. It's a no-win for you. Either you oppose the resident parking crowd, thus agreeing with the suburban drivers, or you support the resident parking crowd, thus supporting them parking their cars. I mean, do what you want, but look at the logic.
And people who need to drive?
It might be difficult to haul medical equipment around to people's houses without a car. It is also difficult to haul tools to do work on a home and things like pipes, ladders, and lumber on a bike.
Is providing a way for these people to park a plus or a minus in your ledger?
They already have a way
Visiting nurses can get special placards that allow them to park in resident parking.
Proper commercial vehicles are allowed 3 hours in resident parking.
This is an incredibly narrow
This is an incredibly narrow minded argument
on finding non-resident parking in east boston
When you suggest that non-residents in East Boston pay for their own parking, you might not be aware that paid park is impossible to find. I have been looking for two months for paid monthly parking and cannot find any. Any suggestions are welcome.
Any specific area? East
Any specific area? East Boston Social Centers rents monthly spaces in a Jeffries Point lot pretty much walking distance to the airport. No idea if spots are currently available but they recently raised prices so I'm sure there's some turnover.
paid parking in East Boston
When you say that people should just pay for parking, I don't think you realize that there is not one spot in East Boston (within a one mile radius of Maverick station) to be found. My daughter is looking for a place to park her out of state car (which she has temporarily) and cannot find a parking spot. She is more than happy to pay but cannot find a spot. It is not as simple to pay for parking in East Boston as one might think.
Airport lots?
The shuttle from the airport lots goes right into the blue line station.
Might not quite work for her, but if she's just going to ditch the car for a week it might be a good deal.
https://www.ebsoc.org/ has a
https://www.ebsoc.org/ has a lot on Sumner about half a mile from Maverick. Worth a call to check availability, anyway. That's just the lot I happen to know about.
For short-term she might try reaching out to a local business with a parking lot - a market on Maverick shares its lot with zipcars, they might be receptive for a month or two? Lots of auto repair shops in that radius too, can't hurt to ask. Even if they say no, they probably have leads that won't turn up on Google.
Heck, I'd even reach out to Todisco towing and see if they have any suggestions, they know all the good spots.
Most of Eastie still runs on word of mouth and handshake agreements, and people are very nice about putting the word out. Everything I need here, I get from asking a forever-local, and they're invariably thrilled to bits to point me in the right direction.
Our Lady of Assumption church
was offering monthly and daily parking a while back and probably still is based on the cars I see there. The lot is on Everett and is roughly a 10 min walk to Maverick, may be worth getting in touch. It's a huge lot and doesn't ever look more than 3/4 full.
When? How?
Boston has visitor parking spaces, not visitor parking passes. Every neighborhood with resident sticker parking has visitor spaces available on a first-come first-served basis.
If you have a handicap that makes it very difficult to visit without a car, then you have access to additional parking with your handicap placard. It's not perfect by any means, but it gives you a shot at finding a space.
Visitor Parking Spaces
When you see one that doesn't have a resident sticker parked in it, please photograph and post.
Umm...
.... that would make it about the same deal as Cambridge and Somerville, would it not? It's not as though Cambridge and Somerville visitor passes came with a reserved space.
No, but they let you use any
No, but they let you use any open space. Boston only lets you use certain spaces, so if residents are parked in the only visitor spaces, but there are open resident spaces, you're out of luck. In Cambridge/Somerville, you could park in one of the open resident spaces with your visitor pass.
HP
HP plates/placards are subject to tickets in resident sticker parking spaces, but can’t be towed.
Neighborhood gets its entitlement program
(me-only resident parking) restored by a short-sighted politician who doesn't understand that PUBLIC resources like streets are intended for use by ALL members of the public, not just those who happen to abut the street.
That argument doesn't hold
There are plenty of PUBLIC resources, use of which is limited to certain members of the public. Consider, for example, public schools, which are available only to residents of the town that pays for them.
Why?
Many of the 2 hour visitors are people doing business in a neighborhood: plumbers, HVAC, home health aids, etc. Don't people have family visit on weekends?
I wonder if the changes - either direction - came with evaluation criteria. One would think that elderly people would need that flexible parking for family and home visits ... but it would be nice to see some information on how that parking was used.
Why Not?
It's not (say Allston) where the worst of the offenders are, but I am sure the neighborhood residents who fought for the Resident Only parking return pointed to some people with out of state plates. This city is rife with people who are not properly re-registering their cars in their state of residence.
Here's the issue
Was this change resulting from a data-driven issue (i.e. abuse of the system) or was it driven by the feels of a few folks with a certain person's ear?
Because the former is governance and the latter is clique rule.
Governance in a democracy means
Input of the people. It doesn’t look like the residents were consulted on this, hence the intervention of Edwards and the about face.
Old Eastie residents, I would imagine, are leery of bureaucrats deciding things in the neighborhood without any input. And if you need more convincing, we could meet up at Wood Island Park and discuss. Oh, wait a minute...
Most of those categories are unaffected
A vehicle with commercial registration, being used to perform work in the neighborhood, is allowed to park in a resident space for 3 hours. No special permit or placard needed.
They're not exactly innocent either
It's not uncommon for workers at some of the many work sites on my street to leave vehicles overnight (on top of the standard months of no parking zones for dumpsters, etc.). They don't get ticketed during the day (which is fine, you're working and I get it), and resident parking ends at 5 there, so they just leave a truck/van or two and carpool in. It's 100% legal, but it's also 100% a dick move and why residents fight these battles.
There's also a house near me responsible for 2-4 work vans and trucks being brought home on a given night. Many of which have those removable magnets and/or ladders on top, etc. that make it obvious they're commercial; none of which have commercial tags or resident stickers. Granted they're residents, these aren't personal vehicles.
Tragedy of the Commons
When parking is massively underpriced people abuse it.
Or
We could just have 24 hour resident with a viable guest parking system.
Or
24 hour resident with $1000 per year administration charge, limit one pass per address for <3 Bedrooms, 2 passes for a 3 bedroom.
That would solve the "too many cars" problem.
Sure
As long as you cut that excise tax in half. And figure out how you can guarantee a spot for every car that pays for a permit, because you can't charge $1,000/year for parking and still have it be first come, first parked. And yes, you can go ahead and say "yes you can." But at the very least, the political fallout would be enough to kill the idea.
In a city full a roommate situations, this will not work.
The city is not providing
The city is not providing equal services to all residents. While in some neighborhoods the city uses taxpayer dollars to zealously ticket city residents who for some reason need to park in another part of their city, the city looks the other way in other neighborhoods allowing people to park cars on the sidewalks preventing persons from using the sidewalk, park up against and block residents driveways and home doors, allowing unregistered, uninsured, inspected vehicles including stolen vehicles or stolen license plates to park in such other neighborhoods, etc. The city should provide equal services all residents of all neighborhoods