Citywide permit parking update

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

So the new citywide permit parking signs now appear to be posted. The new rules will be enforced starting January 4th.

From what I've seen, they did a rather sloppy job placing the signs. Some blocks have no new signs. Sometimes there are new signs just a few feet apart, or at weird heights on the pole. And on streets like Elm, where they replaced old restrictions (like 2 hour parking except by permit 8 am - 6 pm except Sundays) with new ones, I've seen blocks with all 4 combinations of new and old signs (new only, old only, both, and neither).

Tom Champion's post at http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/2011317.html explicitly says the major-street permit and time limits are not in effect on Sundays, but the signs don't reflect this. They just say "2 hour parking except by permit 8 am - 2:30 am, permit-only 2:30 am - 8 am", without saying "except Sunday". You'd think they'd have proofread the signs before they spent thousands of dollars posting them them all over the city.

And I still can't believe the extent to which they imposed the permit-only rules, even in industrial areas. And this might be illegal under state law, since http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/40-21.htm just says towns can ban parking in front of a house except by residents of that house.

Comments

[misterthorn.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much weight Tom Champion's LJ entry will have when contesting a parking ticket.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Another thing: the old "2 hour parking 8 am - 6 pm except by permit" rules for Elm Street weren't posted on the south side between Miller Avenue and Star Market, which made sense since those houses are actually in Cambridge, even though the street is in Somerville. The new rules have no such exception, so people who live there are forbidden from parking in front of where they live.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

It does seem to have had the intended effect of forking in the dough at the parking office. And it gave me a good excuse to have to pay to have guests park in front of my house, which is good because I do not believe in free parking. That said, some of the new rules and methods of enforcing them do seem somewhat arbitrary and archaic, such as continuing to make people pay for parking with quarters in Davis Square when better alternatives exist.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You don't HAVE to use quarters. You can go to the Parking Office (during business hours, of course) and buy a $20 or $50 Park Card and use that. When it's out of funds, you have to go BACK to the Parking Office and buy a NEW ONE, as they're not refillable.

I was _GOING_ to buy 10 $5 cards for stocking stuffers this year, but that's not really feasible, nor reasonable given the lack of refill-ability.

This system has been in place since 2006, evidently.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I was wondering what those little slots on the meters were for. Presumably the parking office has a machine that dispenses these. Why not put the machines near the parking meters???

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Or at least in some vaguely convenient self-service location... in the WALL of the parking office, where it gets its own line, for example. (I haven't actually seen what the dispensing mechanism is like, as they went and pulled out a form when I asked for the card and I stopped it when they said $20 or $50 only.)

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Leave it to a government office to require a form for a transaction where you give then $20 and they give you a card.

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

They did something like this in downtown Lowell. The parking spots are numbered. You walk over to the nearest machine, type in your parking spot number and how long you want to stay there, and then either feed the machine cash or swipe your credit/debit card. It spits out a piece of paper you stick on your dash. It's nice because you don't have to have quarters, which was a HUGE annoyance to the merchants downtown...we aren't quarter dispensers!

It astounds me that the parking cards that Somerville is using are non-refillable. That's so wasteful!

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Personally, I _hate_ Pay & Display.
On a bad-weather-day, the last thing I want to do is go from my car to the kiosk, back to my car (which I probably locked while at the kiosk) and THEN get on my way.

I _want_ the Park Card system to be usable and it pisses me off to NO END that it isn't, in any meaningful way.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

How do you control how much of that $50 is spent during any one sitting at the meter?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You dip the card when you arrive. It debits the full amount possible. You dip the card when you're leaving. It gives you back the unused portion.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

That actually sounds pretty clever. Too bad it's so inconvenient...

[marmota.livejournal.com]

Nice. So, people with cards pay only for the time they actually used, and it also cleverly resets the meter instead of leaving a residual amount, so that the next person has to pay. Certainly more fair, but maybe the math works out that it's more lucrative for people to waste money on time they aren't using a spot?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Huh?

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Right now if i put in the maximum amount in quarters I might be paying for parking when no one is using the meter. I think that's what mamota is saying.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

If I'm going to the bank, and I *hope* it'll be <15 minutes, chances are that I'll still put in an extra quarter just to be safe. I suspect a lot of people do this. So, the question becomes in cash vs card, is a spot *paid for* more often than it's *in use*, at which point I can see why they aren't in a hurry to encourage people to use the cards.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Also, have you seen the line at the parking office recently?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Did I imply that I thought any of this was reasonable? I don't think I did. ;)

[m00n.livejournal.com]

No, I was just adding to the cause for frustration :)

They did a great job on my street

[silveraeroguy.livejournal.com]

posting the new permit only signs all over the place. Six of them on a 75 foot stretch of dead end. Perhaps we have those "extras".

In fact one was bolted above another sign stating Street Cleaning ends November 30th...