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Time for Boston to start charging for parking permits, councilor says
By adamg on Tue, 04/23/2019 - 12:46pm
City Councilor Michelle Wu (at large) says a rapidly growing Boston can no longer simply dole out unlimited free resident parking permits to residents and wants the city to start charging $25 per annual sticker - with exemptions for senior citizens, low-income residents and home-health and BPS staff who make regular home visits.
Wu's proposal, which the City Council will consider tomorrow, would also create, for the first time, a visitor pass, good for 72 hours - at a cost of $10 per visit.
"The current system is ineffective at managing curbside space in a manner that is fair and accessible to all who need to park on-street overnight," she writes in her proposal.
Boston has long doled out the permits for free - and has limited visitors to small numbers of spaces that are often taken by residents.
In her proposed ordinance - which they council will likely send to a committee for a hearing and study - Wu says that's no longer feasible when the Boston's population has increased by 100,000 since 1980 and number of permits in the city has increased 25% over the past ten years in a city that now has at least 300 households with five or more cars registered to them.
Her proposal also includes a way for the city to designate new areas for permitted parking, without waiting for residents to file petitions for them.
In her request for a hearing, she says the current system particularly benefits well off residents:
The current system to establish resident parking zones requires residents to self-organize and collect signatures from at least 51% of adult residents who live on the affected streets. Through this system, neighborhoods with resources and time have an advantage, which only perpetuates systemic inequities. ... More than half of households without vehicles have annual incomes less than
$25,000. Only 7% of zero-vehicle households make over $100,000
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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 Wu's permit proposal | 255.86 KB |
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Comments
cynically, I think the
cynically, I think the exemption for 65+ people is because they're the ones with all the time in the world to go to city council meetings and flip the fuck out about a policy like this. by exempting them, the council has limited the grey-hairs interest in blocking the program from moving forward. hopefully at some point once it's regular policy and everyone's calmed down, they quietly do away with it (or up the age, etc)
limit per household of 2 permits
A household of working adults that need cars need to find off street parking. And they should just be removed from Beacon Hill altogether.
The permits for home health aids and teachers is a little weird. State employees make more home visits than teachers, but overall to neighborhoods without neighborhood parking. The bigger issue is the need for parking near schools for employees. There was that crazy street in Charlestown that entitled themselves to park on school property.
Are you speaking about the
Are you speaking about the Edwards School incident in Charlestown a few years ago?
That incident was ENTIRELY driven by some school administrator not communicating to the public that a long-standing policy was changing. Suddenly one morning dozens of cars were towed. And when a public meeting was scheduled to discuss it, they accused the neighborhood of being racists.
Nobody in the neighborhood was against making sure teachers would be able to park. they wanted to able to use the parking lot when it was otherwise empty.
Longstanding policy
Of not towing? From the time that I worked in the area, it was well known that it wasn't legal and there were long posted signs there, too - just nobody had been doing anything about it.
Should we make sure that we have a major public campaign to notify everyone that there will be a "sudden change in policy" because police now arrest domestic abusers and people who get in bar fights, too?
Instead of posing a lazy
Instead of posing a lazy strawman analogy like comparing a victimless infraction to a violent, victimful crime. How about the case where the Commonwealth suddenly starts enforcing one of its more obscure laws.
Brave anon
Suddenly one morning hapless school administrators thought that those old signs instructing drivers that non employee cars would be towed meant something.
limit per household of 2 permits
And why should they be removed from Beacon Hill-issue with people there? It's not just the wealthy that live there. If you don't live in the Back Bay, South End or Beacon Hill not sure how you can be so critical of the demographic. A few do not mean everyone...
The rotating demise of small
The rotating demise of small businesses because wealthy people store cars on the street that they might use on weekends to go on mini break s. The point of these changes is that if you can’t afford to store your car, then you can’t afford a car. And just because you remove resident stickers doesn’t mean you can’t park. It means that you are no more worthy than the visiting rabble.
(No subject)
Brave anon with mean cartoons
Brave anon with mean cartoons. I hope this beautiful woman gets paid by all the idiots that think there is something insulting about her appearance.
Fully support this proposal
This is long, long, long overdue. Cities and towns all around us have been charging for the same type of parking stickers for years, but we just can't ever do it in Boston because...? I do believe the day has finally come.
Sam Adams must be turning
Sam Adams must be turning over in 'his" parking spot.
Michell Wu Parking permits.
I dont understand "neighborhood s with resources and time have an advantage which only perpetuates systemic inequities." It seems to me that anyone who resides in Boston can self organize and collect signatures to get residential permits.Also how is time available to one group less available to another group? How does existing system benefit well off residents moreso than any others? Any resident well off or less so can abtain resident permits the same as any other. There are far less available spots because of the recent explosion of appartment/condo building.
People in lower income
People in lower income neighborhoods typically work longer hours and at non M-F 9-5 hours, so they have less time to gather signatures for a petition, and would have a harder time reaching their neighbors when they are home. Just look at who has the time to go to public meetings right now. They are typically older and whiter than the population at large.
Somerville has an excellent
Somerville has an excellent program that tries to take all needs into account. It's also quite straightforward. A few years ago, they designated ALL residential streets as resident permit only 24/7 (except Sundays.) Most major streets in town are 2 hour parking (some metered, some free), and resident permit only during overnight hours. Each residence can also purchase a limited number of visitor permits of different lengths to allow for their visitors to park on residential streets near their residence (within a block or two.)
So, daytime visitors can park on main streets or use a visitor permit belonging to the resident they are visiting on residential streets. People with legitimate business in the city where they need to park all over town can apply for a daytime business permit (for example home health care workers, contractors, landlords, etc). Residents can also purchase additional one-time one-day permits if they are having a party or large gathering.
It's not a perfect system, but it does a pretty good job at prioritizing on street space for residents while also allowing for reasonable visitor parking for guests of residents and other people doing business in town.
https://www.somervillema.gov/departments/traffic-and-parking
Yeah
And I’ll continue to keep me and my business out of Somerville. And I’m damn sure I’m not the only one with this mindset.
for what it's worth
we haven't missed you
I'm glad the city government
I'm glad the city government gets to decide if my reason to go there is legitimate. Be kind to your benevolent overlords!
I Dug Out my Cah . . .
. . . and I pay for this permit so now I have even more of a "right" when you park in "my" space.
Bring it on...
I've lived in the Back Bay for 28 years straight and 10 more part time, 3/4's of the time with a car as I need to drive places for work. Otherwise, fuggidt about it. But I believe in fair use costs and to me it's ridiculous that we don't have a fee that at least covers the cost of processing and printing resident stickers, besides the fact that it would cut down on "illegal" resident parking. Too many people that lived here, moved, and continue to use the resident sticker as a free parking pass-my ex included for a year. Make it at a minimum $10 a year MORE than cost and contribute the rest to bike/pedestrian improvements. While every dollar counts for me now, $36/year-$3/month doesn't move the needle much and really isn't starving anyone. A few packs of Ramen for me...
visitor passes
so presumably, since they're time-limited and have a cost per-visit, these are something that'll have to be applied for each time? is this going to be the same way moving permits are issued, where you have to apply weeks ahead of time and then take time during the work day to go downtown and pick it up in person? because....nobody's going to do that. it's already massively inconvenient to do that for something big and planned like a move or something that lasts a year, and now they expect people to pre-plan every time a friend swings by for dinner?
hopefully they figure out some kind of workaround. maybe buy online and print at home, with a generated QR code to prevent counterfeiting?
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Maybe I'm dense...
But I don't understand how charging a fee for resident stickers is going to suddenly make more parking spaces appear.
I think doing an analysis on the number of potential spaces versus stickers released is overdue and probably a good data point to have, but is the city going to really limit the number resident stickers doled out, especially now that they will be making money on them?
Still, this proposal does NOTHING about the congestion caused by non-stop construction and utter lack of coordination among utilities digging roads and blocking intersections with their vehicles. The stretch of Washington St where it turns into Hyde Park Ave is a nightmare. Further up the road, just past Ukraine, deliveries for the new apartment/condo complex routinely block traffic and prevent the 32 from passing. And that's just one tiny stretch of the city that's not even downtown...
There should be a charge for
There should be a charge for resident parking permits, other cities charge why not Boston, especially since many Boston residents are not allowed to park on these Boston streets even when they want to attend a Boston event. Exemptions for low income should be limited to seniors and persons who work full time with cars worth less then X dollars. Students driving driving around in new Mercedes and BMW given to them by their parents should not be exempt. Home-health and BPS staff who make regular home visits and they should not be exempt. There is no way to know if they are actually rending a service to the neighborhood resident or out on the town not work related; they are not allowed to park in resident parking spaces now so that should not change. As far as visitors passes they should be limited to cars owned by Boston residents, there are already places for out of towner's to park its called parking lots, there are not enough spaces for Boston residents as is
Wait a minute
Why do seniors and low-income get a discount? Maybe get rid of your cars...
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