parking citations to get more expensive

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Wanna park illegally? You gotta pay more

Read the Somerville Journal article for the full scoop, but the salient details, as of Monday:

• The penalty for parking in the path of a street sweeper increased from $25 to $30


• On Aug. 12, the fines for street-sweeping violations will increase from $30 to $50


• Parking meter violation fines also increased from $15 to $20


• Parking in a bus stop will earn a $25 fine instead of $20.


• Handicapped parking violations will double from $100 to $200


• The distance residents must park their cars from street corners has increased from a minimum of 10 feet to minimum of 12 feet from a street corner, and the fine for violating the minimum distance from a street corner also increased from $20 to $30


• On Aug. 12, the fines for violating snow emergency parking rules will double from $50 to $100


• Fines for permit parking violations will also increase from $30 to $40


• Fines for parking within 10 feet of a fire hydrant, parking in a crosswalk or obstructing fire lanes will also go up from $30 to $50

*boggle* Those are pretty huge increases, all taken together. I'd really like to know what the "must park at least 12 feet from a street corner" thing is all about. Why is 10 feet not good enough anymore?

If I ever move from my current place, I'm not going to any house that doesn't have a driveway I can use. Jesus.

Comments

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

holycow. cambridge recently increased their fines by roughly this much, but i wasn't totally fussed because they were bringing it INLINE with what Somerville was before. ie, $15 permit parking fines obviously weren't deterring anyone. I feel really bad for the people I saw in Traffic & Parking yesterday--they weren't bad people, just made some parking mistakes. if you leave your car in the wrong place overnight you could get two tickets, now twice as much money, and these people were having trouble paying the old prices :(

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Several months ago I got two tickets for parking somewhere overnight a little too close to the curb, AFTER my housemate saw a parking enforcer eyeing my car and asked him if he was going to ticket it, because she would move it if so, and he said no, he wasn't going to. And then the next morning I had two $30 tickets on my car. I could have garrotted someone, I was so mad.

[kareila]

Something similar happened to me a couple of months ago. Did you appeal? I appealed and my ticket was dropped.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I was going to, but I was busy with work and life and I forgot until it was too late. :(

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i appealed a ticket once... i got a ticket for being in the same spot (right in front of my house) more than 48 hours straight, except that i actually had only been there for 34 hours.

when i appealed it, i brought in my paychecks to show that i work 40 hours a week in needham, and a movie ticket stub to show that i went to a movie in burlington (both places that you kinda need a car to get to), to show that there was no way i could have been there for 48 hours at a time, and the guy at the appeals office told me that i had no proof that i drove MY car to those places, but he'd "let this one slide" and "chalk it up to inexperience". what would be the point of owning a car if i could take somebody else's car to work?

i asked him how i could avoid this happening in the future and he said "you can't". so now even if the spot right in front of my house is open, i often park elsewhere so they won't ticket me again. that guy at the appeals office is an ass.

[kareila]

Wow, your experience was quite different from mine. The appeals officer I talked to was very considerate. I've also never been ticketed on the basis of the 48 hour rule; I often go a week without moving my car.

[theviper.livejournal.com]

doesn't mean it was him...

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Considering that the first ticket was written mere minutes after my roommate's conversation with him, yeah, the first one was him.