Have a seat! Space savers in Brighton.
An irate citizen filed a 311 complaint from Charlestown yesterday:
Was verbally harassed when doing as "the rules state" and removing illegal space savers because the city does shit about them. It's getting to the point where they are getting violent, and guess what not only will I sue them if they touch me but I'll sue you Marty Walsh since you are setting this tone from the top, and perpetuating this culture of entitlement/space saving bullshit/violence.
Walsh, of course, was trying out his latest stand-up routine yesterday when he told Bostonians not to put out space savers, that there was no snow emergency and that all space savers will be collected by trash crews this week.
Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!
Ad:
Comments
What year is it for you?
By Rob O
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:30am
If it's 2019 in your world, it doesn't really matter what happened "back in the day." Welcome to the present.
sno cone
By Sha Doobe
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:11am
Is that a lemon sno-cone in bottom right...
Savers
By Bugs Bunny
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:15am
No actual enforcement from City Hall will ever happen until there's a murder over a space saver.
What on earth makes you think
By Scratchie
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:12am
What on earth makes you think there would be any enforcement after a murder? Do they start enforcing traffic laws when pedestrians are killed by drivers?
Someone was already shot in
By Kinopio
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:29am
Someone was already shot in Dorchester over a space saver. Being pro space saver means you are pro theft and violence, because that is what the space saver "system" is based on.
https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/1-Person-Sho...
POV?
By cinnamngrl
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:35am
Is this person trying to park? Are they just removing all the space savers?
Why does that matter?
By anon
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:59am
Space savers are illegal and should be scrapped. They are anti social. They are wrong.
Opposite of Anti-Social
By Carmella
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:22am
Neighbors helping each other dig out their parking spots is actually a pretty social event. Growing up in the city, unlike many of the people posting on this site, people would take to the streets after a good storm and be outside most of the day, helping each other dig out. In fact, after the spot was dug out, you pretty much knew who parked in which spot because you saw what they were using as a space saver. It was a pretty good tradition that brought neighbors together, unlike now. Neighbors now wait for the property management company to come and shovel the sidewalk outside. Newer residents, instead of grabbing a shovel and checking on the elderly neighbor, walk by with their heads buried in their Facebook. The newcomers who use space savers frequently put it in the spot without ever having taken a shovel to it and expect it will be there when they return. This activity has been taking place for many years and it’s insulting that people move here expecting the unwritten rules to change because they don’t like them. I guess that comes from growing up in Connecticut with a driveway and hired help to clear the snow from it.
Democracy Explainer
By Rob O
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:09pm
Rules, whether written or unwritten, are made by the community. When the members of the community change, rules may be amended or scrapped, new rules may be implemented. It can be a wild ride. No one member, even a person who "grew up here," has veto rights over the rules. The fact that a rule existed in the past does not mean it is the appropriate rule for the present.
For the sake of social harmony, you are expected to abide by the communally-set rules, whether or not you personally agree with them.
I'm happy to field questions.
It does matter
By Waquiot
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:25am
For the sake of the argument, we'll go with all spots being free. If someone needed to park and saw the space and, since all spots are free, moves the cone or whatever to park there, that's one thing. If someone just up and moved the cone or whatever because they think it's a horrible thing even though they have no skin in the parking game, they are being kind of dickish. One can say the saver is being a dick, but they person who is stirring up a fight for no reason is doing the same.
Someone who throws away a
By Kinopio
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:31am
Someone who throws away a space saver is doing the city a favor. A space saver is trash. They are throwing away someone else's liter. Space saver users should be fined for littering.
"stirring up a fight for no reason"
By Sock_Puppet
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:35am
Presumptive victim blaming. Nice. That's good for lots of occasions.
The victim being?
By Waquiot
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:38pm
The one person who will not be involved in the theoretical fight.
There would be one or possibly two victims in this case. The pedestrian who has a heightened sense of public order would not be one of them.
Sure but...
By fungwah
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:55pm
The only reason there'd be a victim, or a fight, is because the person who put the space saver there to begin with is a violent asshole with no concept of how public spaces work. It doesn't matter what any third party did or didn't do with the trash they left in the spot. To claim anything otherwise is, if not exactly victim blaming, still wrongly shifting blame from the asshole.
morality is fake. Saying
By cinnamngrl
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:41pm
morality is fake. Saying that space saving is immoral is smarmy. The question is what works? Violence is not acceptable. Hoarding does cause harm, so a person really has to question whether saving their own space is worth hurting others. But discussing this over the internet is really the stirring up a fight for our own entertainment.
morality is fake. Saying
By cinnamngrl
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:41pm
morality is fake. Saying that space saving is immoral is smarmy. The question is what works? Violence is not acceptable. Hoarding does cause harm, so a person really has to question whether saving their own space is worth hurting others. But discussing this over the internet is really the stirring up a fight for our own entertainment.
Simplest interim measure
By Sock_Puppet
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:22am
Is as Mahty stated: when the trash trucks go by, if you've left trash in the street, it goes in the truck.
And if they can figure out
By anon
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:24am
And if they can figure out who left it, you get a littering ticket.
Please do let me know in the event this ever happens
By tape
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 1:34pm
Because in my neighborhood at least, the next time this happens will be the first time.
It’s the City’s fault
By anon
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:04pm
15†of snow, no snow emergency but spend half hour shoveling out your car. Some buffoon who doesn’t own a shovel takes your spot because the City “says†you cannot put out a space saver.
How do you know that the
By cden4
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 1:50pm
How do you know that the person who took "your spot" didn't shovel out another spot somewhere else?
This thread shows the
By anon
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:26pm
This thread shows the absolute entitlement of car owners - whether you believe in space savers or not you all act entitled.
"I shoveled it out...the space is mine."
"I did nothing and the space is mine."
I think it's time for city to start charging for parking on public residential streets - and I'm not talking about .25 an hour. Maybe $10 a day? That seems fair. We can take that money and put it towards T or road infrastructure.
I'd support that. Maybe.
By Bob Leponge
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 7:03pm
On the one hand, from the fact that street parking is overconsumed, it's reasonable to infer that it's underpriced.
On the other hand, there may be other social policy objectives, such as trying to keep the city a little bit more livable for economically middle class people, that militate in favor of continuing the current de facto subsidization of street parking. The reality on the ground is that our public transportation infrastructure sucks, and that therefore most people trying to have a reasonable life in the city, except right downtown, sort of need a car. Yeah, I get the idea that we ought to stop subsidizing driving, but the other side of that coin is that it would be nice to not screw ordinary middle class folks in the process. You can't have a sustainable city with just downtown professionals and foreign real estate investors.
A reasonable first step would
By anon
Wed, 03/06/2019 - 8:46am
A reasonable first step would be to attach a fee to parking permits, with the cost of the first permit being very reasonable (20-30$) and increasing exponentially with each additional car registered to a household. If you can afford to upkeep 4-5 cars, you can afford to pay 500$ to park the fifth one.
HAHAHA YOU TOOL
By B
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:30pm
The only reason it ever escalates to violence is because of yuppie idiots like you who want to come to "our fckn city" and change the traditions which make Boston wicked chahhhming. Now gfy
That's odd
By anon
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:52pm
i thought you had to be at least 17 years old to get a driving license.
Not 10 with a long disciplinary record.
Nope
By fungwah
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:56pm
The only reason it escalates to violence is because of violent assholes. If you think it's appropriate to attack someone or damage their property because of their use of a public parking space, you're the one with the problem.
"You forced me to assault you!"
By Scratchie
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 1:34pm
I hope to God you aren't married, because that's exactly the same logic that abusive spouses use to justify beating up their partners.
Whooosh?
By Bob Leponge
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 7:05pm
I think?
Eventually every argument devolves to the point that sarcasm and earnest position-staking are indistinguishable, but I think the message to which you responded was the former. Gawd, I hope so.
Where are people parking in summer?
By Kaz
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:42pm
In six months, you get in your car parked on the road and drive off and don't put out a space saver. When you get back, you park your car in an open space that isn't the same place as before. Do you think there was no car there less than an hour before you got there?
So, where are all these extra cars coming from in the winter? You drive away. When you drive back, the spot where someone else who shoveled out their car and drove away an hour earlier is where you park. How hard is this? It's just like the summer except there's some snow on the sidewalks.
Unless you park on a street where half the street is normally empty, then this isn't an issue. There's a finite number of people who drove away from your street and returned at any given time. It doesn't have to do with snow.
Unless you park on a street
By anon
Wed, 03/06/2019 - 7:10am
This is actually one argument for savers working well. I've lived in a few neighborhoods where there was never any shortage of spots available for anyone willing to pick up a shovel and dig one out. People saved the spots they dug for a couple days and there were no issues.
There are a few factors
By lbb
Wed, 03/06/2019 - 11:10am
It does actually have to do with snow: specifically, the snow between cars that doesn't get shoveled out.
Go check out the "car condos" of the South End: in a snowy winter, without a complete melt between storms, there's an increasingly large amount of snow between cars that leads to fewer cars being able to park. It doesn't take much to do this.
Also, students are gone, and summer is when many people take vacation. The difference is noticeable everywhere in the transportation system, not just parking. It's not a completely radical difference, but it's there.
Pages
Add comment