Somerville Department of Traffic & Parking Motto: We'll Sleep When We're Dead

[azores.livejournal.com]

Just curious, but does anyone know the hours worked by those dedicated foot soldiers who serve the Somerville Department of Traffic & Parking, fanning out over our fair city, their handheld modules spitting out parking tickets to the point of smoking mechanical failure.

I ask because have seen these people out and cracking down on transgressors even after 10pm. I repeat, AFTER 10PM! I have also seen them lurking about before 8am. Is there a graveyard shift we need to know about?

[To be honest, I genuinely feel bad for these folks- there are few jobs out there where the general public meets your mere appearance with frantic, paranoid Where-Am-I-Parked? mental checklists and hostile glances.]

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I went by one of them recently, who was on the phone and talking to a friend. She was complaining about having to work the 4pm to midnight shift.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

People who live in neighborhoods with permit-only parking need places to park at night, hence the enforcement.

Could be worse, you could live in Cambridge.

The really sad part is that parking enforcement officers are often the victims of anything from verbal abuse to assault. Nobody should have to put up with that on the job. Nobody likes to get a parking ticket, but really, if you feel you got one you didn't deserve, that's what the appeal process is for.

[azores.livejournal.com]

Consider me duly chastised for the levity. I'm sorry.

[highalive.livejournal.com]

hhahhhahaha amazing

[bgum.livejournal.com]

Once I called them after coming home from work and finding 11 cars illegally parked on my street and having nowhere near my house to park.

The response I got was that, since it was after 5pm, there's nothing they could do.

Maybe they're lazier in the office.

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you may have called the police. I live on a street where my neighbors and I are glad to see them becuase of a nearby business that draws large crowds of patrons. We learned that we had to call the traffic department not the police and inform them that we could'nt park on our street. While they did not come out right away they came the next week or day at the congested time. Now they come pretty regulary and keep our street relatively clear. I allways thank them whenever I get a chance.

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

The title of this one made me laugh. It's amazing how often the Somerville parking police are out. Cambridge has nothing on them.

"We'll sleep when we're dead"..hee..:)

[ron_newman]

I just want to know if they like being called Rita.

[kjc.livejournal.com]

Your post title made me laugh out loud and then read it to my boyfriend.

In Cambridge (where I lived for 6 years and had to park on the street), you knew you were safe after 7pm and pretty much guaranteed safety if it was raining. But they were much more vicious with the towing and the stupidity of the infractions they ticketed for (my bumper was a couple inches over the outermost edge of a crosswalk once, and I got a ticket for it).

In comparison, the people in the Somerville Parking Dept. are infinitely better (IMHO) than those in the Cambridge Parking Dept. More competent, nicer, and more professional.

Since I have a driveway now, I've got room to be kind. I smile at the parking enforcement officers and chat with them on occasion (I was curious if their digital ticketing machines were networked - they're not - but the woman explained how they enter license plates and mark the time to enforce "Parking for 2 Hours only" type rules... much more efficient and less likely to screw people than chalking the tire).

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

On my street in medford they only seem to ticket between 1 am and 2 am. (and infrequently at that)

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Medford doesnt have, AFAIK, a separate traffic enforcement department. It's the regular cops who go out and ticket, so ticketing doesn't happen constantly like in Somerville.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Some streets have street cleaning from midnight until 6am. I assume there must be parking officers at midnight to ticket the cars on those streets.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

On street cleaning nights they do ticketing, on those streets, between the posted hours also (i.e. midnight to 8am).

[watchamacallit.livejournal.com]

My street doesn't become permit parking only until midnight, which is also when sdtreet cleaning starts. So ticketing doesn't get going until the midnight hours.