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The following email was sent by SPARC’s director, Courtney Koslow around 12:30pm today.
Barry
———————–
Hello there,
Permit parking changes are coming. The City has officially set Monday January 4th as the enforcement date for citywide resident permit parking. Signs will begin to go up in the next few weeks and the City will make a citywide CTY call announcing the changes. Parking Control Officers will flyer cars and then give out warnings, before beginning to ticket on January 4th. I am pleased that the City agreed to engage in this level of notification before issuing tickets and to postpone the implementation date from the initial August 1st date.
Over the summer the Traffic Commission vote to designate 21 streets as Major Thoroughfares that will be 2HR parking from 8am-2:30am and resident only from 2:30am-8am. The City has said they won’t be enforcing the 2HR parking at night. I’ve pushed them to have the signs reflect that but that is not likely to happen.
Parking Changes Discussion at Somerville Voices Forum – Sunday November 15th, 7pm VNA 259 Lowell Street
This Sunday, I will be discussing the state of parking changes in the City at a forum hosted by the community blog, Somerville Voices. Please join me there to hear more details about the parking changes and to ask any questions or voice any concerns you may have. The event will take place at the VNA at 259 Lowell Street at 7pm. You can find more information at http://www.somervillevoices.org/2009/11/12/events/parking-rules-forum-this-sunday/
SPARCs Push for Tweaks to Permit Parking- Wins to Report
The City, particularly Tom Champion, the City Spokesperson, has spent many hours with me and Ward 6 Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz to create a list of modifications for the Mayor’s Parking Solutions Task Force to vote on. I cannot thank him enough for all of the time he’s put into getting our concerns heard. I’ve attached the list of those items here. Unfortunately, the Task Force was only amendable to a few of these modifications. However, there are some likely wins to celebrate.
Some of the things that we are proud to say will likely be put into place, with the Mayor’s approval are:
Creation of small gathering visitors passes (likely for up to 4 people) for $1 that can be downloaded online- it may take some time to upgrade the website to allow this, but the City is open to the idea
Creation of artist parking permits- the specifics are still being worked out, but the City is committed to ensuring artists renting studio space will be able to park near their space.
Flexibility of the hours of Business Permits- The permits are generally available from 8:30am-6:30pm or 6:30pm-3:30am. The application now says that the hours can be flexible. Talk to Traffic and Parking Director Jim Kotzuba if your business requires more than a 10 hour window for a Business Permit.
Additional Landlord Pass Available to Absentee Landlords- this would allow a landlord to have a pass to provide to prospective renters, or to a contractor working on their property.
Centralized Correspondence to Traffic and Parking issues and Improved procedures and staffing for Business Permit Program
Process for Adding Streets as a Main Thoroughfare- Traffic and Parking will devise a protocol for how people can petition to get a street, or portion of a street, added as a main thoroughfare.
Please continue to let SPARC know if there are concerns you have that we have not yet tried to have addressed, or that you are not getting successfully resolved by the City. Also, if you’re still unhappy about these changes, let it be known! Call the Mayor’s office, contact your Alderman and the Alderman-at-Large. Tell your friends! Contact information can be find here: http://sparcfaqs.blogspot.com/2009/07/make-your-voice-heard-and-sign-petition.html
Cheers,
Courtney
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www.somervilleparc.blogspot.com
Parking Solutions Task Force
City of Somerville
November 4, 2009
| ITEM |
ACTION |
- Visitor Permits for Property Owners, including Non-residents: In order to facilitate access to their properties so that they may show rental units, conduct on-site business or coordinate contractor activity, consider providing two standard visitor permits to each owner of real property located in Somerville, whether or not the owner is a resident.
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Recommended that each landlord be allowed to purchase one additional landlord permit at the regular price |
- Centralized Response to Correspondence: To provide consistent, well-documented communication to the public on traffic and parking matters, consider a policy of referring all email and written queries on these matters to Constituent Services for reply through its Correspondence Management System. (This change would not apply to transactional correspondence such as appeals, applications, payments etc., which must be processed by T&P personnel.)
|
Recommended |
- 10-minute Grace Period for Expired Kiosk Tickets: Once kiosks become operational in Somerville, consider adopting the City of Boston’s policy of not issuing a violation until at least ten minutes after the expiration time on the tickets printed by the kiosk and displayed on the dashboard of properly parked vehicles. [Important note: this recommendation will be adopted only if the technology used in City kiosks allows PCOs to tell at a glance how much time has elapsed since a space has expired.]
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Not adopted – insufficient support |
- Improve Procedures and Staffing for the Business Permit Program: Expanding T&P’s capacity to process business permits so that all communications and processing do not flow through one or two people with multiple duties. This potential change in procedure is suggested in order to reduce the possibility that responses to business permit requests are delayed because particular individuals are out of the office or occupied with other duties.
|
Recommended |
- Extending Time Limit for “Extended Visitor” Permits to 30 Days: This does not fully respond to the idea of creating temporary resident permits [see below] but would provide the maximum number of days allowable under current state law for an extended visitor permit.
|
Held over for future discussion (Requires Traffic Commission vote) |
- Official Notice of Flexibility on Business Permit Hours: Consider official public acknowledgement on the T&P web page and other posted information that business permits are not restricted solely to the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (first shift) and 6 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. (second shift) timeframes, but can be customized to cover other work periods. [This is already done on the current form.]
|
Already Implemented |
- Artist Permits: Artists, as designated using the City’s current criteria for determining arts status, would be eligible to receive one 24-hour parking permit good only on streets immediately surrounding their studio or other place of business.
|
Held over for future discussion |
- “Systematic” Ticketing: This is recommendation to have PCOs ticket systematically rather than rushing ahead to tag vehicles that may pull up to the curb in view of PCOs working their way down a block. The idea would be to let drivers grab a permit or correct change before rushing up to issue an immediate violation. [Important note: This item replaces “4-Minute Grace Period for Curb Enforcement”]
|
Training issue for T&P |
- Provide the Ability to Apply for, and Whenever Possible, Download and Print Permits via the Internet: Recognizing that many forms of permits require hands-on review and processing by T&P staff, consider offering as much web-based processing as possible, using bar code or other optical coding technology to allow constituents to receive and print their permits (especially temporary or event permits) online. To facilitate this service, consider reworking the T&P web pages to provide a more complete and consolidated permitting portal with more clearly stated information about permit rules and procedures. In addition, consider the “automatic” granting of a small number (to be determined by T&P) of event permits that may be ordered online, paid for by credit card and printed for same-day use. The call here is for the PSTF to recommend that the city not only embrace these goals but come up with an implementation within 30 days.
|
T&P, 311 to provide proposed implementation plan before recommendation to Mayor |
- Resident Permits for Commercial Vehicles that Residents’ “Primary Personal Vehicles:” [Important note: new language as amended by Courtney Koslow.] If a Somerville resident either a) owns a business based in Somerville and has a commercial vehicle, with or without markings or b) has a commercial vehicle, with or without markings, for a non-Somerville based business but the vehicle is registered in Somerville under the resident’s name, then that resident will be allowed one resident permit sticker for that commercial vehicle. Each resident may obtain a “commercial vehicle resident parking permit” for a maximum of one vehicle. All residents who receive a “commercial vehicle resident parking permit” would be allowed to park overnight and they would not be subject to commercial vehicle overnight parking violations. All residents with commercial vehicles that are eligible for residential parking permits would not be required to bring the vehicle in for inspection to get the resident permit commercial vehicle overnight exemption, as is currently the case in order for people with commercial vehicles without markings.
|
To be sent to the Board of Alderman for dicussion |
- Temporary Resident Permits for Short-term Renters: Consider amending resident permit rules to allow for the issuance of resident permits to renters with short-term leases or contracts (duration, frequency and cost of such permits to be determined).
|
|
- Reduced Prices for Business Permits Issued to Artists and Non-profit Organizations.
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|
- [Important note: This item replaces “Special Signage for Businesses Operating under Extended Hour Agreements”] Any agreements made between the City and a resident, business, artist, religious congregation or property owner to not enforce a portion of the parking regulations in a certain area, or at a given point in time will be conveyed to the hearing officers. If a ticket is mistakenly given for a violation that was promised to not be enforced, the ticket will be waived through the ticket appeal process. Where appropriate, a letter from the entity granted the non-enforcement request to the individual who received the ticket can serve as back-up evidence.
|
Training issue for T&P |
- Revised Signage on All “Major Thoroughfare” Streets Clarifying Non-enforcement of the 2-hour limits after 8 p.m.: Consider explicit signage stating that two-hour parking limits will not be enforced after metered parking hours end or after 8 p.m.
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|
- Procedure for Future Adjustments to Major Thoroughfare Streets: That T&P develop and promulgate procedures, requirements and forms for residents and/or businesses to petition the Traffic Commission to expand or reduce the list of streets designated for purposes of permit rules and enforcement as “major thoroughfares.”
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Recommended that T&P develop protocol |
- Business Owner and Manager Parking Permits: Allow each business to purchase up to a pre-determined number of Business Owner and Manager Parking Permits that would allow business owners and business managers to park within a 16 hour time range. The exact number of Business Owner and Manager Parking Permits issued to a business will be determined on a case-by-case basis, or set by Traffic and Parking.
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(with note that business owners and managers can obtain 1st/2nd shift permits that will provide 8 a.m. to 2:30 am access (18.5 hours) |
- Event Parking Passes for Artists: Allow for artists who have events in their studio that are open to the public to obtain a certain number of event parking permit hang tags that they could reuse for each event. The exact number of event parking permits issued will be determined on a case-by-case basis. The event coordinator will contact the City to notify them every time they have an event and plan to use the hang tags.
|
Held over for future discussion |
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