by LauraM in Transportation
Posted on June 18, 2009 at 11:53 am
Last Modified on June 20, 2009 at 6:36 pm
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It sounds as though Somerville will be changing the entire city to be resident-only permit parking, and I’m wondering whether I’m the only resident who’s upset about this.
There have been some articles in the Somerville Journal about the parking changes, and it looks as though people are quite upset about the metered parking changes. Personally, those changes don’t bug me as much as the “resident-only” change.
We consciously bought our house on a street that has open parking, because we’ve spent years dealing with the annoyance of permit-only parking in busy areas and were really tired of it. I can certainly understand that parking restrictions are necessary in busy areas for the good of the residents. However, it’s always been possible to apply to have your street changed to resident-only, so this change will really only affect streets (like mine) which don’t have any draw for non-residents.
I’ve thought about three different situations which make this a bad thing, and if they really must go through with the new policy, I think these situations should be dealt with by adding to the current permit program.
- You’re only allowed 2 guest permits. However, it’s not uncommon to have more than two people over at the same time. When I lived on permit-only streets in the past, we could deal with this by making most of our guests walk 10 minutes to the nearest non-permit street. But if the entire town is permit-only, this would probably mean shuttling guests back and forth to Medford or Arlington. I believe the parking office does grant “party permits” that allow you to have more guests park for a short period, but the only way to get these is to take time off work and go to the parking office.
- With the number of schools in the Boston area, there are a lot of visiting researchers, professors, and students here only for a week or a month (or an academic term at most), and Somerville is one of the most affordable places for them to stay. It’s not at all reasonable to ask these people to change their car registration just to be able to park. Furthermore, parents of college students are likely to want to visit for more than the allowed 48 hours (or even to loan their out-of-state car to their child for a while) without having to change the plates.
- There are lots of non-residents who need to park in Somerville on a regular basis. For instance, employees of Somerville businesses and family and friends of residents who visit more often than is allowed with a visitor permit would have no way to legally park, especially in areas far from metered parking.
I think my concerns 2 and 3 could be fixed by creating a non-resident permit as well, which perhaps would only work on streets that are currently open parking. If the city is really doing this to increase revenue, non-resident permits could cost more than resident permits. My first concern is a bit tougher, although the current “party permits” (assuming this still exists) could be good enough if they were easier to obtain – maybe buy online and print at home.
I’d love to hear about something I (or we, if others agree with me) could do to encourage fixes like these or to turn around the decision to make the entire city permit-only.
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I whole-heartedly agree. I too live on a street with open parking. It is a quiet street with plenty of open parking spaces. This makes it extremely easy to have people over to visit. Considering the fact that most of Somerville isn’t easily accessible by the subway, when people visit or travel within the city, they tend to drive. Why make a city more of a hassle to live in? Areas of the city that currently have parking trouble are already marked as permit-only, and making a particular street permit-only is easy to change on a street-by-street basis. Why burden the entire city unnecessarily?
Will the parking permits be divided into neighborhoods? Or will a permit allow you to park anywhere in Somerville?
If all streets indeed end up as permit-only, I think it will be critical to have at least 5 spots/block dedicated to visitor parking, easily available temporary permits and party-permits that can be printed at home (as suggested by the original poster).
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I live on a street in Ward 3 that is not marked permit only and abused by visitors and non-residents who park their cars for days and sometimes for weeks. They get tickets for not moving their cars for street cleaning or have them towed during snow storms because they are parked on the wrong side. There are about 8 houses total on our street and not everyone has off street parking. I am for making it mandatory sticker parking city wide.
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“My first concern is a bit tougher, although the current “party permits” (assuming this still exists) could be good enough if they were easier to obtain – maybe buy online and print at home.”
That’s a great idea. It sure beats having to visit Traffic & Parking in the middle of the work day. Now, what do we do for people without internet access?
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For people without internet access? Postal service. Resident permit renewals are already available this way. It would take a little more planning ahead, but as you said – beats having to go to the office in the middle of the day.
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How about we save the postage and utilize the parking control officers to hand deliver the passes to those residents who do not have internet access.
That way maybe we can get some of the PCO’s ticketing in the residential neighborhoods instead of hanging around the municipal lots and on street parking meters.
Just a thought.
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I wasn’t aware of the “party permits”…sounds like a good common-sense solution. If only they came with temporary liquor licenses and noise waivers. Your points 2 and 3 are excellent examples of why a non-resident permit option could be a win-win. A quota for students, a quota for professionals, and the right (high) price tag could work out for everyone.
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LauraM, Great ideas! I would also add: eliminate the 48-hour rule, or change the time limit to something that allows people without driveways to go on vacations, like 2 weeks. Maybe we should all send letters to the Mayor and Traffic & Parking Department and our Aldermen.
Janine, I live on a resident-only street and all I can say is: be careful what you wish for (unless you like getting parking tickets)!
If Somerville’s parking regulations truly focused on better allocation of limited street space instead of being solely about generating maximum revenue, citywide parking permits might make sense. But under the current regulations, such a policy change will only mean the city gets to pick more of its citizens’ pockets.
Then again, with all of the additional fed-up residents this change will create, maybe we’ll have a better chance of getting more rational rules.
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Julie:
I have a parking sticker already and will fight whatever ticket I wrongly receive. There are blocks within Ward 3 that are no sticker parking and are packed with non residents and out of state plates for weeks.
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Janine, it sounds like your street (maybe your whole ward) does have a problem, but I’m curious whether it’s people who leave their cars there to abuse the open-parking or whether it’s just people who live there not changing their plates.
If I thought it would do any good (and if I could afford all the postage), I might try to leave surveys on the windshields of non-residents parked on open-parking streets around the city. I’m curious what percentage of them (a) technically do live there but just can’t change their plates for whatever reason, (b) are visiting a resident, (c) are visiting a business, (d) are there for some other reason.
The results of a survey like this probably should influence the city’s decisions about how to deal with parking problems. Reasons (a)-(c) would take a bigger fix than just making the street permit-only.
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We have several multi-apartment buildings surrounding our area – either with college kids or low income housing. They are provided a spot but either have more than one car or many, many visitors or these are people who realize they can leave their car there and go wherever they want.
People put their cars on my street and the streets around us during the snow emergencies and leave them there the entire winter. I know the 8 families who live in my street and what cars belong to them. They are fed up with it too. Many of us have small kids and babies and walking blocks carrying a toddler, bags and being pregnant is not fun. I should be able to park on the block I live on and not 3 blocks away. Just this week, we have had two car break-ins right in front of our house and another car was side swiped by a crazy driver while people were outside in the afternoon.
It is just an abuse of parking on the streets since people chose not to get a parking sticker. Once their car gets a boot, it sits there for weeks if not months on end.
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I’m a new resident of Somerville, and I’ve been kind of blown away at how hard it is to get a parking permit here–it seems like such a detrimental policy…
I will (unfortunately) only be here for around a year, doing a service term, yet, to get a resident parking permit, I’m going to have to register the car in Massachusetts and get Massachusetts plates, which will force me to change the insurance on my car (as my current insurance won’t be able to provide coverage if the car is registered in Mass), and before all that happens, I will have to take the car to a repair shop, because the horn on the car is faulty and if the horn happens not to work at the Massachusetts DMV, I won’t be able to pass the DMV test to get the car registered here.
So, I’m crossing my fingers that it won’t be hundreds of dollars to get the horn working (the car was taken to a good mechanic before who wasn’t able to fix it), because if it is, I’m not at all sure what I’m going to do.
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Ben, register your car. If you are here a year, you are technically a resident. Also, you have no idea the amount of crap you will deal with regarding your insurance company if your car gets broken into and you say your address is in MA and your car is registered in another state.
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@Ben: I’m sorry to hear you’re in a bind, but if the only expensive and time-consuming part of your situation is getting your car to pass inspection, that’s not really indicative of a problem with Somerville parking policy.
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And Ben, your horn has to work regardless of where the car is registered in order for it to pass inspection.
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Thanks for your responses–though, being a new resident, the process of finding out what a good insurance company and good auto repair shop is here, in addition to going through the car registration and inspection process, is time-consuming enough that I would avoid it if possible (if there was a non-permit street nearby, maybe that’d be the solution, and is part of the problem that you’re dealing with Janine).
Additionally, for someone who is low-income, the expense of getting the horn repaired (probably at least a hundred dollars), the car registration ($125), the inspection fee ($30), as well as the expense and time for what looks like the mandatory Mass Driver’s license ($75) for residents makes this all even more of a challenge for me (and I’m guessing, others).
The Mass RMV site also mentioned that it takes 6 to 8 weeks to receive the registration certificate and new plates–since I can’t get a parking permit until I receive the registration, what should I do with the car over those 6 to 8 weeks to avoid tickets?
Oie, this is stressful.
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Ben:
Regardless of where your car is registered, you need the horn fixed. They need to make sure it works in order for you to get an inspection sticker. When you register your car, you should receive a tempotrary certificate that you can show the Traffic Department.
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Ben,
I recommend Progressive for insurance; new to MA and competing aggressively on rates. For car repair I recommend Fitz and his crew at the Monroe-branded shop on Washington St. just outside Union Square.
Forgot about the MA license requirement; that’s kind of a bummer. OTOH, a lot of local bars don’t like to take out of state ID anyway (not even passports), so “membership has its privileges” I suppose.
When you get insurance, the insurance company should be able to help you fill out the required registration forms (because registration and proof of insurance go hand-in-hand here).
The 6-8 week quote for plates sounds way off to me. With the right forms (possibly including the vehicle title?), I think you should be able to enter an RMV office and walk out with both plates and a registration. The last time I registered a vehicle here was a few weeks ago, and they printed it on a sheet of plain paper and told me it was permanent.
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Back on the topic of permits, you can also get some time to change your plates (with an “out of state resident moving to Somerville” permit): http://www.somervillema.gov/section.cfm?org=traffic&page=916
Someone pointed this list out to me lately, and it does make me feel a little better about the entire city going permit-only. I do wish they had a better visitor policy, though — I’m just imagining having 4 or 5 friends over for dinner and having to make them walk 10 minutes to the nearest metered spaces, passing entire streets full of empty spaces (not mention fighting with all of the other visitors in the area for the few metered spots within walking distance).
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Thanks for all of you help and info, Janine, jared, Laura–I really appreciate it!
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Ben- if you’re here for only a year and your car isn’t passing inspection- think about going without a car and get a bike and a T pass. We have the subway, bus and also ZIP car rental with many locations. It would be easier and much cheaper than this horn business. I’m totally annoyed with the city wide parking permit- but could feel better if some of the other rules changed- like making it easier to have guests (love the print out permits for guests as well as delivery ideas!) and also to change the 48 hour rule. If I have a permit and am a resident- how dare they tell me I need to move my car every 2 days. I don’t clog up the city streets with driving because this is a city that’s easy to get around without a car, but need it on the weekends so I leave it parked for days. It makes my blood boil! I’ve already sent an email to several aldermen and the Mayor- Its definately a good idea to voice your concerns to them.
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Will I no longer yet be allowed to park my car on a commercial street where there are no house around. My concern is I work in the Innerbelt Park Area and Mayor Jazz may assign a PCO to monitor the the area and ticket those without guest cards.
I hope if I do recieve a ticket that they will fill the pot holes on the street and plow when it snows. It would really suck if my employer moved out because it would be less property tax revenue for Jazz fests but Joe will manage.
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Ben — Zipcar is a great, and much less expensive option. Avoid the inspection fees, insurance, repairs, etc. Avoid parking issues. Zipcar is great in MA, they were founded here. We have our choice of 8 different zipcars, all within 1 mile, whenever we need to drive. Also bikes can be used for many short trips.
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I’ve lived in Somerville for 4 years, and one of the things I’ve loved about it is the availability of non-resident parking.
I have a sticker, and a Visitor pass, but I very frequently have guests over. The street next to me with non-resident parking has been a godsend. I often have spontaneous gatherings, dinner parties, etc. that would make applying for a so-called “party permit” a real hassle. Having to apply for a “party permit” at all seems outrageous to me.
The non-resident streets near my house do not have a problem with abusive parkers, although we are pretty close to Harvard, Porter, and Inman Squares. I have never had to walk more than a block from where I parked, and that’s usually only on street cleaning or snow emergency days, when whole sides of the street are off-limits. There are still so many ticketing opportunities (the 48-hour rule and street cleaning, for example), that no one could really leave their cars on a non-resident street for weeks. Even I can’t do that as a resident!
I really, really hate the idea of this new rule, and I wonder if the majority of Somerville residents really support it. Shouldn’t that be the basis of instituting a new policy? Isn’t it already easy enough for the town to make $$ from tickets??
(And someone else made a comment about the potholes… I agree! You’d think with all the nitpicky rules they can give tickets for– parking closer than 20ft to an intersection, etc.– they would have plenty of $$ with which to fix the horribly cracked and hole-ridden streets that are ruining my suspension!)
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I also wanted to comment on something I saw posted by Janine:
I don’t see what the connection is btwn non-resident parkers and vandalism (break-ins, side-swiping by crazy drivers). It seems to me those things can happen anywhere, regardless of Permit Parking Only policies…
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Jennifer:
I live in a ward that has more non-resident parking than any other ward. I should not have to walk blocks from my house to park my car. I lived in Cambridge for years and have never seen the problem with residents and parking as I have in Somerville. Parking is completely abused in our Ward and people are mad that our alderperson voted against it and we (many of us) are not voting for him in the November election specifically because of this issue. We did not want to have to do a petition and now realize that we will need to do one for our street.
BTW – at least 2 of the accidents have been witnessed and were caused when the “out of state” drivers who parked for long periods of time on the street and were moving their car(s) because of the tickets and/or the boot on the tire (after tickets were paid). The break-ins and accidents happened during the day. Our residents are very protective because there are only 8 houses on it and people are concerned.
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I am in a situation similar to Ben. I will be moving to Somerville soon from out of state (as is my car). I have no qualms with getting a resident permit, but what do I do until I go through the whole litany of requirements (proof of residence–>driver’s license–>car registration) in order to even apply for a permit? Do I just try and bum a visitor permit off of someone?
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Matt, the city actually will help you with that problem (they just don’t publicize it very well). Check out the “Out-of-state resident moving into Somerville” temporary permit. http://www.somervillema.gov/section.cfm?org=traffic&page=916. As long as you have a business day free during your first two weeks in town, you should have enough time.
Janine, I completely understand why you’re frustrated with parking – it sounds like a bad situation in your neighborhood. Unfortunately, it’s possible that citywide permit-only rules aren’t going to help much. Those “out-of-state” drivers are going to have to change their plates and get permits if they want to park anywhere near their apartments (assuming they live anywhere in Somerville), and then they’ll still be allowed to park on your street. It seems like the ideal situation for your street would be for only that street to be permit only with the surrounding streets still open.
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LauraM:
I beg to disagree. The people who park on the street with out of state plates park their cars and walk off – either down Walnut Street towards Union Square or various other street below mine – that are sticker required parking. If they had a sticker and correct plates, they could park closer to their own home.
One should change their plates, license and insurance if they are here for more than a year. People try to play the system with the insurance companies since maybe their “home state” rate is scheaper than MA. I have learned this lesson the hard way when my car got broken into in NYC and I was living there and had PA plates on my car. The insurance company fought me paying the second break-in since the car should have been registered in NY by then.
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Janine:
If your street is having a problem, why not petition to have *just your street* or *a few streets in your ward* changed? Why subject the whole city to a radical policy change (one that many would oppose just as strongly as you support it)? I simply don’t think it’s fair to institute a city-wide ban on non-resident parking just because your street has a problem. Changing the current system city-wide would be a problem for me, for people visiting me, and for many others.
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Jennifer:
I did not put this issue in front of the BOA or the Parking Division to make the change. I support it what they want to do but never gave them the idea.
I will petition the BOA to make my street permit only.
I did not realize there are so many people who refuse or choose not to get stickers and have many visitors at once. God, what would you people do if you lived in Cambridge?
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Jennifer, it should go the other way. In other words, all streets should be permit parking, but if a majority of residents petition and there is no T stop nearby then it can go non-permit.
FYI: My street is permit parking and it really does stop out-of-staters (I am near Tufts) from clogging the street. Also, going down and getting a sticker and a couple of visitor passes is pretty easy.
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Janine and Xuma, just to clarify: As I mentioned before, I *DO* have a resident sticker and visitor pass!! My reasons for opposing this are not because I myself do not want to bother going down and getting a sticker. And Janine, one of the reasons I live in Somerville instead of Cambridge is that I *thought* it was more laid back. I prefer freedom over draconian laws and regulations. (This is, by the way, also why I do not live in Arlington, which is much worse and does not allow overnight on-street parking for anyone, even residents.)
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What kind of authority or leverage does the city have to force non-residents to pay parking tickets? President Obama waited almost two decades to pay late tickets he received in Somerville and Cambridge when he was living in Somerville and going to school at Harvard Law School. He only paid them because he was running for president. But for everyone else, what incentives/punishments would motivate them to pay? Could their cars be towed if they didn’t?
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I believe there is no real authority for the city to collect from non-residents. This is the problem with people living here for more than a year and never changing their license. Insurance companies have issues with people registered in one state and living in another to get a cheaper rate. I know from experience. If the state had something in place – like some agreement with other states to collect fees and fines – it would be OK. I do not know if anything like this exists right now.
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Jennifer:
Almost all houses in Arlington have driveways hence no need for off street overnight parking. Providence, RI does not allow for overnight parking either and it is for safety reasons. The streets are so narrow that a fire truck cannot get down the street if cars were parked there.
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Barry,
The city can (and I can say from experience many moons ago, will) “boot” vehicles that cross some threshold of unpaid parking tickets. Effective, but not highly scalable.
But if you live elsewhere, get a ticket while visiting, and leave never to return, I don’t believe the city has (or should, IMHO) recourse for collecting from you at a distance.
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I have seen a car boot here once. I wonder what it costs the city to pay someone to install and then later remove it?
When all streets become resident-parking-only, and if higher numbers of non-residents start getting tickets, and a sizable portion of those go unpaid, and the boot system can not scale up to that volume, then the new policy will become futile. What good is an unenforceable law?
Also, what steps is the city taking to alert the non-residents to the rule change? Will an orange ticket be their notice? That would seem like an awfully rude surprise to get.
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You can’t register a vehicle or renew a registration in Massachusetts if you have any unpaid parking tickes. From the RMV site: <>
Obviously this won’t help with out-of staters, those who register their cars in other states, or those who sell their vehicles and go car-free, but would eventually force Mass. residents with cars registered here to pay up.
I also think some states may have similar reciprocal agreements with other states. My mom got a ticket here while visiting from Ohio and since it was a ridiculous one (she had the visitor’s permit on the wrong side of the dashboard, but still visible), I told her not to pay it. She said she had to or she wouldn’t be able to renew her registration. I don’t know if this is true, but she was concerned. (I successfully disputed the ticket for her, so it turned out OK in the end.)
Re boots: I have seen several here in Somerville. Though not nearly as many as I saw in Cambridge when I lived and/or worked there.
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Sorry, the cut & paste from RMV didn’t work. Here it is again:
If you have any outstanding parking tickets, excise tax bills or abandoned vehicle citations, you must obtain releases from the city or town involved. You must present the original releases to renew.
this is the page: http://www.mass.gov/rmv/regs/reg5.htm
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Julia, in order for the RMV or another state to know that someone has outstanding unpaid tickets, there would have to be an electronic system in place to track all the tickets, and I highly doubt that exists. Has anyone heard of anyone having their registration denied because of this?
I would be surprised if the state really has such a system to keep track of the tickets issued in all the towns and cities in the Commonwealth, especially when different municipalities use different ticketing systems. I know that Somerville just recently upgraded its ticketing system to a new vendor [link to city's press release]. I’m even more skeptical of there existing an inter-state ticketing system.
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Barry-there are states with reciprocal argeements regarding paying tickets in other states. I will find out the states that follow these agreements. MA really should have something like this so there is no further revenue loss.
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I’m currently a journalism student and i was wondering if I could talk with any of you via email more about your thoughts on the new parking rules and fees for a piece that i am writing. if you are interested, let me know and i will post my email address!
thanks in advance
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Hi Regina — I’m happy to help. Contact me dbshugrueATgmailDOTcom
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Regina-I would love to help you with your article.
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Laura and Janine, i really appreciate you guys helping me out! if anyone else would like to help me, send me an email at reginap@bu.edu and i’ll get back to you with some of my questions!
thanks!
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I’d be happy to help as well, Regina.
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I just got off a 311 call in regards to this, the operator insists that the city of Somerville does not have to give you individual ticket for each ticket you received. Instead you will know all of the mysterious tickets when you get your hearing notice. So you may receive 3 tickets on your wind shield, but in fact 5 in your mailing notice. Does anyone know if this is the standard?
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There is a car on my street now – for two weeks – racking up tickets. The owner comes out and throws the ticket on the ground. I will bet that when he requests a hearing his excuse will be he never got the tickets.
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The parking situation in Cambridge and Sommerville is a joke, My wife just took my son to the Cambridge hospital and parked on Line street right next to the Cambridge hospital on Line street.
Anyway it appears after googling line street that half of Line street is in Cambridge and the other half is in Sommerville. How were suppossed to recognise this is beyond me there is no Welcome to Sommerville sign and more than half of the signs on this street are faded and so cant be read.
The signs need to be upgraded because the $50 fine I will have to pay would be better spent caring for my autistic son than wasted on Sommerville.
I’m sorry but I live in Cambridge but literally on the border with Sommerville and probably 80% of my money gets spent in Sommerville supermarkets and stores. Sommervilles taken enough of my money.. the least they can do is put clear signage on Line Street so people can be informed where they are parking.
People who live near the border of Cambridge/Boston/Sommerville sooner or later will get ticketed due to bad signage. I wouldnt mind if when I paid the $50 fine they used it to upgrade the signs on the street but they won’t sadly.
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