Parking and Other Intensely Personal Matters

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

This is a tricky message to write because, while it references a couple of other threads, it is primarily a personal message.

First, I want to note once that, once again without help from "official sources," the DS community has done an outstanding job of covering the public policy issues around street sweeping procedures and ticketing. The only additional elements I would add are that:

* The $50 ticket does seem to acting as a deterrent. (I'll try to get the actual numbers, but the city wrote more tickets back when it was $25. Apparently, some folks saw the lower fine as bearable, but bestirred themselves to comply when the fine went up.)
* If we wanted to "maximize revenue," the city would set a lower penalty so that we would get to write more tickets. The goal here really is to improve compliance.
* The reason that the sweeping schedule varies from neighborhood to neighborhood (second and fourth Mondays in mine, first and third Tuesdays in yours), is that we don't have enough equipment or personnel to do the all the even- (or odd-) numbered streets citywide on the same day.

I could go on but, as already noted, other posters covered almost everything in this debate -- including the fact that it's always infuriating to get a ticket, even when it's your fault and even when there are good reasons for the policy. I appreciate the fact that so many members of this community essentially said "Yeah, it stinks, but it is what it is." You have to be careful or you'll get a reputation for being grown-ups -- and who wants that?

Second, I want to apologize for not being more in evidence in recent weeks. I participated in a family vacation trip to London from March 19th to the 26th (a word of appreciation goes out here to Somerville Critter Care for minding the cats and the house) and returned to find that my 85-year-old father has gone into the hospital with some serious problems. I've been spending a lot of time there and am going to have to continue to do so.

Therefore, and third, I will be not be making an appearance at the Burren, for which I offer apologies in advance.

Sorry to be such a Capt.Bringdown.>:(



I'll try to make a future meet-up.

Comments

[narya.livejournal.com]

So sorry to hear that your father's not doing well. I will be thinking of your family.

[metagnat.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. I will keep you and your father in my thoughts.

-E

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info, and I hope you enjoyed your vacation!! And I know I speak for other communities when I say I am sorry to hear about your father. Best to you and your family.

[ron_newman]

I'm sorry to hear about your father. I hope he recovers soon.

(But while I've got you on the line here -- what do you think of the idea of starting street cleaning at 9 or 10 instead of 8 am?)

[ruxxell.livejournal.com]

its interesting that you should say that there were a lot of people willing to just shell out the 25 bucks to not move their cars, as it reminds me of Freakonomics and the part where the school was charging parents some measly amount if they failed to pick up their kids, and noticed that when the fine was too low, it INCREASED the number of parents who didnt pick their kids up on time
because you can replace guilt with money.

so, smart move with the 50 bucks. as a carless guy, it doesn't impact me anyways :D

[pants-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Is that Captain Britain?

[myselftheliar.livejournal.com]

I hope everything works out well for you sir.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

As the OP on the parking post, I agree with much of what you've written here though I did want to ask you something about this:

* If we wanted to "maximize revenue," the city would set a lower penalty so that we would get to write more tickets. The goal here really is to improve compliance.

How does having a lower penalty allow the city to write more tickets? Is it that a lower penalty ensures more non-compliance and hence more tickets? I would think that the city can write as many tickets as there are non-compliant cars.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Hope things go as well as possible for you and your family.

[narya.livejournal.com]

Like Tom noted in his post, at $25 some people probably thought it was less trouble to pay the ticket than to move their cars. That seems consistent with the way one would expect supply and demand to work.

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry to hear about your father.

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

1. It IS Captain Britain, subbing in for Capt. Bringdown and doing a darn good job of killing the buzz with his steely glare of disapproval.
2. If we started street sweeping later, we'd finish later and the job would overlap the 4 p.m. shift change. that, in turn, would raise issues of overtime, shift size, and switching over equipment and drivers from one shift to another.
3. There's a price-point at which many more vehicle owners would just as soon pay as comply. If you find it, you maximize revenue. It may actually be less than $50, but it's more than $25. The fines are set by ordinance, however, so we have a very limited ability to experiment with incremental adjustments. As the aldermen will tell you, the $50 level was set to deter, not raise added revenue.

[ron_newman]

I used to get two or three of these a year back when I had a car and they were $15. They were annoying, but obviously not expensive enough for me to be more careful.

[fumblerette1.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I got a ticket in Cambridge one time (parking ticket...didn't know about the whole no parking within 20 feet of an intersection thing), but it was only $20 and I couldn't find any other place to park, and I would've paid a lot more to park in a garage, so I didn't really care. Would I knowingly do it again? No, that's not me. BUt I'm sure plenty of people would.

[bryant]

Sorry to hear about your father. :( Best wishes for his recovery.

[ron_newman]

But isn't street sweeping done from 8 am to noon everywhere? If it was instead 9 am to 1 pm, or 10 am to 2 pm, that wouldn't go past 4 pm.

[narya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, same here. If I'm biking to work and realize I forgot to move my car, I'm unlikely to go back for $15 or $25. For $50 (or actually getting towed) I'd certainly think twice about it.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

If 30 people a day don't bother to move their cars when the penalty is $25, but only 10 people forget or don't bother when the penalty is a more daunting $50, the city will make less money with a higher ticket, but have better compliance and be able to clean streets more effectively. (Futhermore, I'd warrant, if compliance is better, it's less necessary for them to tow noncompliant cars because they're not as much of a problem for the cleaners -- and heaven knows towing's much, much worse than tickets for the drivers. And tow fees go to Pat's, not the city, anyway.)

After all, the city could save the most money by not writing tickets at all and laying off their traffic officers, seeing as all in all, it costs more to employ them than they ever make writing tickets. I don't think we'd want that, either. Revenue is not the primary point of traffic penalties. (In general, it never ceases to amaze me the way so many people seem to have this idea of local government as some big money-making operation, in defiance of both logic and evidence.)

Not too many years ago, when I still had a car, I posted here bitching about a $50 street cleaning ticket, too; and I got pretty much these same answers. (People weren't particularly snarky to me, luckily.) It certainly does suck. But I came to see the logic behind it. Now I'm just glad I don't have to worry about it, beyond reminding my BF to move his car, anyway.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your father, and thanks so much for posting here about all this. Best of luck.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Ron,
I'm going to hazard a guess here since this is a service my company provides for the base and say that the actual cleaning may take 4 hours, but there is still the matter of emptying the trucks, maintenance and other associated jobs the driver/cleaner is responsible for that would push it past the time for shift change.

[pushupstairs.livejournal.com]

I could swear I've seen some places (Somerville Ave.?) where it is done at night. but I could be remembering incorrectly.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

1. We still need to create a Tom Champion superhero costume. A name like Tom Champion evokes all kinds of pulp hero goodness. It reminds me in large part of Alan Moore's Tom Strong character. The Tom Champion costume should probably include a kilt, because the high school mascot is the "Highlander".

3. Hooray for the Laffer Curve! And discussions of economics in general.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Best wishes for your Dad. It's a really tough thing when Dad is not doing well, and I'm sorry you have to go through it. Thanks for being here for us despite that.

[cos]

Cambridge always seems to tow every car that stands in the way of street sweeping. That method makes the least money for the city (aka "costs the city most"), but ensures 100% compliance: none of the cars are there when street cleaning comes through.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

I would imagine that's also the strategy that most pisses off the constituents. Bah, Cambridge.