Resident Permit Parking
Harry Mattison
Allston and Brighton? Do the benefits outweigh the inconveniences? Does
it help reduce the # of cars parked in residential areas, make it
easier for residents to find on-street parking, and reduce the need for
solutions like front-yard parking?
Here is the City's guide to Implementing a Resident Permit Parking
Program
http://www.cityofboston.gov/transportation/res_perm_park.asp
An overview
- a Boston Transportation Department (BTD) representative attends an
informational community meeting
- BTD will then ask that petitions be submitted from each street
involved. Petitions must contain the signatures of over 50% of the
residents stating their desire for resident parking.
- After receiving and verifying the petitions, a license plate check
may be performed in the proposed area. This check will determine if, in
fact, a large number of the vehicles parked in the proposed RPP area
are registered from outside of the neighborhood.
- After an agreed upon period post-implementation, BTD will again
return to the community to gauge the success or failure of the program
and address any changes that may need to occur.
sarah correia-eck
have out of town friends, relatives or houseguests as has happened to
me there is nowhere for them to park. On one occasion when a friend
with a van came up from Florida to visit me for a few days, once we
found a legal spot for it we never used it for us to go anywhere out of
fear there would be nowhere to put it. In my part of Brighton over by
Comm. Ave & Washington St there is very little parking & hardly any
driveways. Overall I am not sure that Resident Parking actually has
improved our parking situation over here. I think it is worse now than
before they had the stickers
Charles Denison
Chucklezone
I've only experienced Res Permit (I live around Harvard/Brighton for
about 2 years). It is a little inconvenient to get the initial sticker
since the City Hall office closes at 4pm, after that I think they mail
the renewal stickers.
The lack or excess of parking is very dependent on the exact
neighborhood. In general, wherever you go, there is very limited
visitor parking. This is a problem for guests/contractors. In Cambridge
and Somerville you can get visitor permits to put on the dash.
AllstonPar...@hotmail.com
> I live in Allston near Harvard Ave and Comm Ave. The streets on the south side of Comm Ave do not have resident permit parking, but they are full 24/7. The streets on the north side do have resident parking, and they tend to empty out a bit during the day. The meters along Comm Ave all fill up completely with residents after 6 pm, since that is when the meters stop running.
>
> I park my car in a private lot since there is pretty much zero chance of me finding a spot after 5 PM anywhere near my apartment.
Exactly. The problem is too many residents warehousing their cars on
the street for weeks on end.
> From what I can tell, resident parking is a useful thing, especially in neighborhoods near the T. It's important that the side streets are primarily for residents that live there. Without residential permitting, I can definitely imagine people parking on side streets in Allston to take the Green line into the city. In fact, it probably happens already to a certain extent.
Useful for some people, but only because they're grabbing a public
resource for themselves at the expense of others. Why should someone
whose apartment is in Oak Square be able to park on the street all day
in Allston Village to take the T, while someone whose apartment is in
Fall River is banned from parking even for 5 minutes to visit someone
or go shopping?
> I would like to see the residential permit zone expanded to include the streets along the south side of Comm Ave. I would also like to see more places available for guests to park for multiple days, but I don't know what a good solution for this would be. I have wondered if BU has any public weekend parking (for a fee of course), but I haven't really found any.
If permit parking were expanded to all the municipal borders, visitors
would truly be screwed (not to mention people unfortunate enough to
work in Allston and live somewhere not near a T station, or who need to
travel when the T doesn't run.)
-Apr
Jonathan Ralton
it, I would either be parking on the street again as I did for four
years, or paying an additional $150.00, which I can't afford. It is
indeed difficult to obtain your first resident permit, or to change
information if you move, because of the hours of operation at city
hall. Renewal can be done by mail, and luckily it has been increased
to three years.
When I have a guest, I go back out and search for a space myself, which
is luck of the draw, and let them park in my space with a guest permit.
Sometimes I will have to park a 1/2 mile away on Cambridge Street.
The configuration of street cleaning nights and alternating days on
different streets is not distributed well, and further crunches the
already scant availability of parking. And then there's snow
emergencies. The mayor complains that residents don't cooperate in
moving their cars for street cleaning, but there is often nowhere else
to go.
When I was parking on Gordon Street, my car was broken into four times,
hit and run once, had the mirror kicked off once, and had the tires
slashed once. Neighbors on Allston Street have their mirrors clipped
and cars spraypainted. So if you actually find a space, it's a big
risk to leave your car in most places.
FYI there was a new ordinance passed last year that prohibits parking
cars in your yard if there is no curb cut (in other words, it has to be
an actual driveway).
Visitor permits are definitely lacking. Visitor spaces are almost
always taken up by residents that need a space to park. It might be a
good idea to have those few spaces actually ONLY for visitors--not for
residents.
Problems: I notice taxi cabs parking on the street overnight. How is
this allowed?
Ideas: Many people can't grasp the concept of parallel parking and
take up five spaces with three cars. Lines on the street would
definitely help. Would it make sense to limit the number of resident
permits one could obtain; say two per household?
b...@rcn.com
Hi. The process to implement a Residency Parking Program involves
several steps as Harry posted from a City website. Below are some
details that may help assist our discrete procedures.
As a City employee and resident of Allston, I believe that the time has
arrived for a Residency Parking Program in Allston. We are
experiencing severe overcrowding issues in North Allston and a
ramification is way too many illegally parked vehicles.
Procedures
1. Send letter to Commissioner Thomas Timlin Boston
Transportation Department, Room 721 One City Hall Plaza, Boston, MA
02201.
2. In the letter, request community meeting (Honan Library?) to
discuss implemenatation of program. Mr. Bill Jurewich of
Transportation Dept. will explain process.
Details well be discussed, i.e. 5 street minimum, 50% plus residents
must sign on, etc.
3. Be certain that Councilor McDermott attends.
4. In Nov. 2002, such a meeting was held with then State Rep. Brian
Golden. For some inexplicable reason, the process stalled, possibly
for lack of support. I suspect that variable has changed.
Our present State Rep. should be asked to attend.
5. I was told that Allston is a propitious neighborhood for the
granting of such a program by the City.
EdPerl...@aol.com
johna
place you want with a sticker. This is what Boston should do. You get a
visitor placard for people who come to visit you. The card is only good
in your area. It also limits your visitor for a certain time frame. Why
can't Boston do this?
John A
Harry Mattison
Illegally parked cars can be reported to the Transportation Department
hotline at 617-635-3125.
Cars that have been in the same location for several days can be
reported as abandoned by calling the Mayor's Office at 617-635-4500 or
at http://www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/.
Looking at Boston's parking regulations, there is illegal on-street
parking taking spaces from residents trying to park legally such as:
Section 12A. Overnight Parking of Heavy Vehicles in Residential Areas
Prohibited - Illegal to park a vehicle weighing more than 12,000 pounds
between 9pm and 8am or anytime Sunday on a residential street.
Section 12B. All-Night Commercial Vehicle Parking Prohibited - Illegal
to park a commercial vehicle with capacity of more than one ton for
more than one hour between 9pm and 8am or anytime Sunday.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/transportation/pdfs/rules.pdf
Hope this helps,
Harry
AllstonPar...@hotmail.com
Because it sucks, for several reasons:
It wastes blocks and blocks of parking spaces that are needed by
nonresidents in areas or times of day where there's very little
residential parking demand.
It allows people who have the least need (residents, who live within
walking, transit , or biking distance) to drive short trips (which
pollute the most per mile) since the permits are good anywhere in the
city, while excluding people with a genuine need to drive.
It means the city gets to keep track of who is visiting you, and for
how long. (If the meter maids decide that a certain car has used your
visitor permit too many times in a month, they revoke the permit.)
Someone else posted the procedure for adding new permit parking areas
in Boston. What's the procedure for removing them?
-Apr