HUB PARKING STICKER SHOCK
Councilors mull charging residents
City councilors say Boston’s neighborhood parking system is “broken” and pitched solutions yesterday that include charging for residential parking stickers — and limiting how many are handed out — while also encouraging parking enforcers to hand out more tickets.
Several councilors at a Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation hearing yesterday expressed frustration with how the city currently gives out unlimited residential parking stickers, but does not charge for those stickers even though some neighborhoods have limited street parking.
Councilor Ed Flynn said he’s afraid his South Boston constituents might have to “leave the city” over the daily battles they wage to secure a street parking spot.
They are “looking for a parking spot for up to an hour,” Flynn said. “Driving around only to see a spot taken by a car from New Hampshire or Rhode Island.”
Councilor Kim Janey said, “Whenever I’m in a vehicle, it takes forever to get from one block to the next, whatever time of day, whatever the weather, whatever day of the week. It’s the new normal.”
Janey declared the “system is broken.”
Currently, people who live in areas with residential parking restrictions have to go to City Hall and prove residency and show their vehicles are registered under their names.
Officials yesterday said 240,000 cars are registered in the city. The city has doled out more than 100,000 residential stickers, they said. The majority of the residential parking stickers have been given out to residents of South Boston, Allston, Brighton, East Boston, Charlestown and the Back Bay, officials said.
Proposals to charge between $25 and $100 a year for stickers have been floated. And with about 110,000 parking permits in the city, a fee of $25 would raise about $2.7 million annually, while a $100 charge would bring in nearly $11 million.
In a statement, Mayor Martin J. Walsh expressed concerns with charging for residential stickers.
“A nominal fee, such as $25 or $50 for resident permit parking, would have a limited impact on freeing up spaces, simply because most people would pay it. What we would find is that this would impact residents who can’t afford to pay for their permit, meaning a policy like this could directly penalize those who make the least and may have few reasonable and affordable alternatives to travel,” Walsh said.
Committee Chairwoman Michelle Wu said prior to the meeting, “There’s way too much traffic everywhere. And we know that a significant part of that is also people circling around, looking for parking. Because there are way more resident permits given out than there are parking spots on the streets — there is a better way.” Wu and other councilors also said they’d like to see stepped up enforcement for violators without stickers parking in residential spots.
Other proposals discussed included charging a staggered rate for households with more than one vehicle, increasing the rate per vehicle, and offering reduced rates for the elderly or low-income residents.
Wu made it clear the council is only in the beginning stages of finding solutions.
Just this month, the council approved increased fines for residential parking violators to $60 from $40. The change takes effect Monday.