Newton’s City Council sent a proposal that would have made it illegal to park at the same meter, the same block or even the same city parking lot twice in the same day back to committee for further review.
On Monday night, Councilor Jay Ciccone (in photo), chair of the Public Safety and Transportation Committee (one of six councilors who had approved the proposal*) asked the item be sent back to his committee after new information surfaced. He did not specify what that “information” was.
*The other supporters were Councilors Auchincloss, Cote, Downs, Markiewicz and Lipof. Councilors Noel and Grossman had voted no.
The “new information” is that the proposed rule change was roundly criticized by constituents, and the committee were sent back to re-do their homework.
@Elmo – Call our city councillors? Why? Common sense cannot be learned.
It appears that people contacting their city councilors did indeed move the needle on this issue.
What’s to rework? Just forget about it. Bad idea. No alterations could make it a good idea.
Every single city counselor should be fired. Do not vote them back in. Newton is no longer Newton. These are the most ridiculous parking bans I’ve ever heard of. We currently have one hour parking in front of restaurants. Absolutely absurd. There is no commonsense left in the city. Newton center is a ghost town. The drugs and alcohol are in plain view at the high schools and no one does anything about it. The quality of life in Newton is the lowest it’s ever been.
@NewtonCares – I think it’s rather too soon to fire the councilors who just got elected and have been in office only 3 months. And that’s now a fair proportion of the City Council.
@NewtonCares
I haven’t been following this, but I can assure that all of our Councillors love our city, and are extremely passionate about our city. The trouble is that they have very different visions, and a third of them are relatively new.
Wouldn’t this item make sense if people (IE Employees) had the opportunity to park for 12 hours a little further away? Maybe a change to require no return within 2 hours to the same regulated zone? That way provide easier access for customers?
It makes perfect sense on the surface, but then you create an opportunity for people from wherever to drive into Newton and grab those 12 hour spaces during the day whilst they take the T to town. That would lock out the employees.
For me, I have to smile. The very same people/councilors who come out and argue we are transit orientated, lets build, build, build, change their tune as it suits them when parking is part of the discussion!
@NewtonCares Let’s not indulge in fake new! There are no ONE hour meters or parking spaces in Newton
@Claire simply walk down Langley Road in front of Johnny’s and you’ll see all of the one hour parking.
And by the way, let’s start a conversation about the drugs and alcohol that are all over the high schools. Why is no one doing anything? Children are showing videos every day of kids in the school smoking and drinking.
Claire have you been to West Newton Village? The meters are one hour meters there.
The proposed ordinance did not preclude exemptions for public lots. The current language is not enforceable due to its vagueness and required clarity. We will revise to address concerns, but it is a stop gap.
The problem with parking in Newton is not the number of spaces it is the mis pricing. Until we allocate parking according to the value of a space, instead of by time or chance, motorists and businesses will experience congestion and frustration.
@Councilor Auchinclos: I appreciate your participation here as well as the fact that this is a challenging issue; as Rick Frank and others have so clearly articulated.
And I agree with you when you wrote: “The problem with parking in Newton is not the number of spaces it is the mis pricing.” I also agree that the current language in our ordinance is “not enforceable due to its vagueness.”
But if there were problems with an ordinance that has been on the books for years, what was the urgency for a “stop gap” now, rather than a more holistic plan that included consideration for congestion pricing or other remedies?
I’m also still trying to understand why you and five of your colleagues would have supported the “may not return the same day” clause in this new proposal? Suggesting it did not “preclude exemptions for public lots” doesn’t quite feel right.
You sit on the Public Safety committee that approved this plan, 6-2, and where those types of exemptions and attention to details should be deliberated. Were they?
Thanks in advance for responding.
I stand corrected. I’ve never seen a one hour meter.
Jake, I’m curious about why you would vote for an ordinance which is “not enforceable due to its vagueness.”
“The problem with parking in Newton is not the number of spaces it is the mis pricing. Until we allocate parking according to the value of a space, instead of by time or chance, motorists and businesses will experience congestion and frustration.”
How exactly do you plan to do this?
I have rented an office in Newton Centre for 20 years. Im right above the Starbucks. I’m an expert on this. Before that I had an office in Newton Corner. Come on over and have a discussion about this with myself and the other tenants in my building who are also experts on this issue.
I have made my peace with moving my car, getting tickets, and the occasional joyous time when I nab a 12 hour space. In the past when the weather was nice I would park down by crystal lake and walk. But now that has become restricted as well!
But this kind of legislative nonsense seems typical these days – why did we find out about this the night before a vote? Did anyone bother to talk to the actual small business owners that would be impacted? My landlord, whom I quickly emailed, heard nothing about this until I told him.
You can tweak this legislation all you want, but it’s gonna be the last straw for me. I’ll move my business out of newton.
Rick Frank
Dominion Software, Inc.
825 Beacon Street
Newton, MA 02459
Medical, Scientific and Industrial Software
@NewtonCares let’s indeed talk about the use of substances by high schoolers. Let’s talk about the stresses they probably feel after all these shootings too. I cannot imagine what it is like to be a high schooler today. But let’s move it to a different thread.
The issue that @Rick raises is valid and does require some additional solutions. We’re dealing with two different issues:
1) The need for long-term worker parking; and
2) The desire to turn over parking for retail customer flow.
The parking restriction seemed to try to answer problem 2, but forgot about problem 1. We need to offer parking passes to employees so they can get to their jobs, but also encourage alternative transportation to open up spaces. At the same time, we need to ensure that parking turns over in the right spots so that retailers keep people coming.
Like it or not, Newton remains car-centric. Yes, we need to work on that problem as well, but that’s a long-term issue (and I believe is an important one; we need to provide other easy ways for people to get to work). In the short-term, we need to allow people to get to work and stay there. It’s a balance.
Mr. Reilly, sent back is not dead. Google “leaf blowers, Newton MA” for a story about how bad ideas never really die in Newton.
Regardless of the outcome, I stand by the gists of my assertion:
1) The fact thus the idea got as far (is getting as far) as it did is a pretty clear indication of just how lacking so many of our councilors are in terms of gray matter.
2) One should not have to worry about policing our elected officials to avoid the implementation or threat thereof of manifestly stupid ideas
3) In this particular case I prefer the alternatives (shopping in other towns or in Newton where off street parking is provided) than contacting my councillors.
@Chuck Tanowitz indeed, I am paid well enough to take the hit of a ticket or 4 a month. AND to pay for my clients tickets if needed. But for many people in retail, working at the sandwhich shops ( where the meter maids take their coffee breaks ) I imagine a 15 dollar ticket could be an hours pay.
Like I said, come over and talk to us. The sandwhich shop, the UPS Store, the young people who work at Starbucks, the dentist down the hall – we all park in Newton Centre, work there ( and as the business owner I pay “personal property taxes”) and deal with parking there. We know more, I dare say, than most o4 all of the councilors, planners, and what have you.
Rick Frank
And if you need more meter revenue, put 3 hour meters all around city hall. The councilors should have to feed the meter like everyone else,
@Chuck Tanowitz the problem with passes is – what exactly are they? Is there a monthly fee? If so, does it guarantee a space? If it doesn’t guarantee a space, what recourse does one have if there are no available spaces ( especially as in this winter, when snow piles took > 6 spaces out of commission in the Pelham lot alone ). If the city wants to turn the lots into a commercial-like lot, they’re going to have to do a better job with snow removal. With respect to public transportation, the councilors should all take public transportation to and from their meetings. Until that happens, and I see fewer cars parked all around city hall, their hypocrites and I call them out on this.
Marti, by current, I think Jake is talking about the rules on the books being unenforceable, but he can correct me if I’m wrong.
I suspect this ordinance is not targeted at Newton Centre but at all villages. Applying it specifically to Newton Centre may expose the most problems. (Yes, that’s where most of the enforcement seems to take place) In public lots, new technology and congestion pricing are tools to help solve this problem. Nowhere in the Nelson\Nygaard Newton Centre study did it recommend ‘no same day’ parking. I’m still waiting for the city to implement something from that report besides the few parking signs that have gone up.
Marti I was referring to the current, not proposed, ordinance. The vagueness compelled the proposed change.
@Adam which rules are unenforceable?
Rick,
If you park in a 2 hour parking zone for about 2 hours, leave and come back, are you allowed to park again? Where I grew up in the highlands it was 2 hour parking in a residential neighborhood and the driveway was on the next street, so we did this often. At what point is it reasonable for the police to say they came by twice and saw you in the space? 2 hour intervals? 3? 4? Also, I think at least some metered spaces have time maximums also, and it’s technically illegal to “feed” the meter past those times. I think the intention is that you’re not allowed to move from one space of the lot to another, but make the resources available to others. This may all be outdated thinking now that we have more flexible ways of paying for parking, but it’s what’s on the books. The ordinances also have to be written in a way that they aren’t too difficult or resource intensive to enforce, or they won’t work.
@Adam well, they are endorable to some extent because I have gotten “feed the meter”tickets in the Pelham lot as well as overstaying in the crystal lake area. And the new App enforces the rule, which is why I move my car to a different space every 3 hours now rather than feeding the meter. It’s enforceable, but the parking enforcement would have to work harder to do so. But to say that I would have to move to a different lot is not unforecable- it’s asinine and I won’t put up with it anymore. I’ll move my business. And as a resident anyone who votes for this will no longer get my vote ( if they had it in the first place),
Again, councilors, practice what you preach. Put meters around city hall, and develop a public transportation system that you can take to your meetings. Until that happens, you’re all hypocrites of the highest order.
I would also like to register a complaint about tha App. The parking time starts the second you bring the app forward. Between. All the clicks, and there are a lot of them, and latency due to network traffic, I’ve had it suck 2 minutes of my time away, by my just entering the space, payment, etc. I’m a software engineer- this can be done better. But like a lot of things I’m sure you all experience, there’s a perverse incentive not to fix it – because it’s more money for the city.
So this plan is designed to prevent business owners/employees from parking in successive 2-hour spots in the same lot/area over the course of the business day – in order to provide more available parking for their customers? While simultaneously making it harder for their customers to make more than one stop in the area over the course of the day?
@Rick I’m actually acutely aware of the Newton Centre parking issues. My wife has an office up the street from you and I hear about her parking woes regularly.
Right now there is no pass being offered, I believe there should be. That pass should try to push employee cars to the edges of the villages, maybe even onto residential streets. But we do need to study this and understand possible solutions. There may be a technology-based solution, it may be different village to village, or there may be something simpler. Clearly people on both sides feel the current solution isn’t optimal.
@Tricia -that certainly would be an outcome. I would love to know what problem they are trying to solve; who put forth the problem; how the proposed solution was derived; and who derived it. No one that I now of in my building was consulted or had even heard of the proposal, so, who the heck and how the heck did they come up with this?
Isn’t parking at its worst outside of the meter-enforced times? (i.e. dinnertime, after 6 PM)
@Chuck Some’s what seems sub optimal maybe the best one can do. I know the sandwhich shop owners regular bring in, and deliver out ( for catering ) food as I see them walking across the Pelham lots. I often have large medical or industrial equipment I have to carry in and out. I have a folding hand truck for that. Pushing me out to the “ edges “ of the villages is far from optimal to me. And you have the twelve hour spaces which are mainly green line commuters ( encourage public transit, yes ). I have thought about this for 20 years, and a lot of people ( except my kids ) think I’m pretty smart. So far, I have heard nothing that’s an improvement over the status quo. I’m all ears.
@Mary Mary Quite Contrary no. The worst times in newton center are between 11 am and 2 pm. Especially the Pelham lot, because Panera bread seats a lot of people for lunch. Ask me anything. I’m an expert :> ) the lunch crowd brings both shoppers ( during their lunch hour )hair stylist customer ( during their lunch hour ) and o& course people actually eating lunch. I often will work > 6 pm and the Pelham Street lot is vary empty.
Jake, thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding of the word current. I took it to mean the current proposed language that was sent back to Committee.
I’m still confused as to why this was passed in committee with so many obvious flaws. I’ve spoken to other councilors who agree that the negative consequences far outweigh this proposed overtime parking legislation’s benefits – if indeed there are any.
As for this plan affecting only Newton Centre, Newtonville and Newton Highlands have aggressive ticketing – even if you’re in the car ready to pull out.
First, where is the proposal to reduce the size of the Council to 16 Members. We were promised that this proposal would be taken up by the new Council?
Second, the parking ban was an absurd proposal. It lacked basic common sense and was not in the best interests of local businesses.
Fortunately City Hall won’t be making the problem worse now, even if only for the time being. But the city has to face up to its own complicity in aggravating the existing problem. For years now in Newton Centre we’ve had a vicious cycle in which the city, in issuing new permits, grants waivers of parking requirements as a matter of course. Without the theoretically required parking spaces of their own, workers feed the nearest meters all day and complain that their customers have nowhere to park. Any number of analyses, professional and amateur, have recommended moving business owners and employees to parking on the periphery, but off-street public parking is limited in capacity and location, and curbside parking on neighborhood streets meets resistance from residents, who know from sad experience that they can’t rely on the city for enforcement.
@Amanda Heller um, where exactly is this “periphery “ you speak of? If you’re going to make this business owner walk more than 1 block, I’m gone. It’s not that I don’t need or like the excercise on a warm day. But with the sidewalks often not cleared in a timely fashion, you’re forcing me to walk on the street to my office on many days during the winter. And I often ( such as today ) have to move equipment in and out of my office depending on what project I’m working on. Forget about it. I’ll move my office to a more business friendly location.
I just took some photos of the very crowded parking today over by city hall. Cars filled the circle, down Comm Ave, and all along the other side of the green. Why aren’t those people taking public transportation to city hall? Why don’t the councilors solve their own congested parking area around city hall first, and practice what they preach.
Rick Frank: The “periphery” mentioned in the past has focused on the Pelham and Pleasant St. lots, where I gather you park anyway. No problem for you, if you can find a space, but unattractive, I would think, for people working at the opposite end of the center. My point was not that I thought this was a swell solution that ought to be foisted on everyone but rather that the city itself bears some responsibility for the crunch.
Can someone enlighten me why Waban Square is the only village without parking meters? Maybe it’s time to add meters there.
@Peter Karg – A few years ago, on April 1, they tried.
@Jerry Reilly – More than an April 1st joke it’s time for meters in Waban Square. One Village in Newton should not be exempt. Wonder if someone wants to docket an item before the Council to require parking meters in all Village Centers.
@Amanda Heller
In Newton Center, there’s not been any real increase or decrease in parking needs in the past 20 years, so, I don’t think the city has made Newton Center any better/worse. There haven’t been any new buildings such as are planned for Washington Street. As I said, the status quo for me is the best I can think of; it’s tolerable, and while the app makes me move my car instead of feeding the meter, I save a trip to the bank to get 60 dollars worth of quarters each week. I’m unclear in what problem is trying to be solved by all this. West Newton? I’m sure a lot of people park in the CVS lot. Newtonville is going to take a hit because people are not going to drive over to who knows where and take a shuttle bus to go to CVS, or Starbucks- they’ll just go somewhere else. The little shops on walnut street are going to get hit hard by the Austin Street development.
@Peter Karg – If the business owners and residents are satisfied with the status quo, why would you want to impose that?
What I most object to is how this plan was done in secrecy with no public input (as far as I can tell), and only one day’s notice that it was going on the docket. Major changes like this should have public input.
When it was first docketed January 1, 2018 as docket item 38-18, it sounded innocuous: “to clarify the language and improve enforcement.”
I didn’t follow this docket item because it didn’t occur to me that it could possibly turn into this disaster of an ordinance change. The change wasn’t done in secret but the lack of acknowledgement that there would be highly controversial changes to the law kept the public in the dark.
I plan on posting the audio from the meeting where this item was approved as a new thread this afternoon.
@Jerry Reilly – I want to see fairness across the City Villages. Exempting one Village while imposing greater parking restrictions on all the other Villages just isn’t right. Adding meters to Waban Square should be included in any new proposal emerging from the City Council.
@Peter Karg – We should put parking meters wherever we need them to help sort out a parking issue. By your criteria, we’ll also need to find a random place in Thompsonville and Oak Hill to install some parking meters too …. for “fairness”.
@ Jerry Reilly – You must live in Waban because I think I hit a raw nerve. Thompsonville and Oak Hill do not have Village Centers that include major shopping areas Waban Square does. I’m advocating for parking meters in Waban Square because if you are going to change restrictions in other Village Centers Waban needs to be included in that discussion. You can’t take the position of “Not in my back yard”. No exemptions for Waban Square at the expense of other Newton Village Centers.
Not my backyard. No I don’t live in Waban, so no dog in that fight. I guess I was just reacting to your general premise.
I just don’t see it as a fairness issue. If a particular place in the city’s parking situation can be improved with meters there should be meters. If not, there shouldn’t. Saying whether anyone’s asking for them or not, a particular village should have parking meters installed for “fairness” sake makes no sense to me. If it did, then Oak Hill would need them too.
No exemptions for Waban Square at the expense of other Newton Village Centers.
Meters or no meters in Waban don’t come “at the expense” of other village centers. It either could benefit from them, or not.
If you put meters in Waban etc you have to budget for the Parking Enforcement effort to monitor them. Nothing’s free.
As for being satisfied with the current situation – it’s a pain, but I’ve thought hard and long about it and I don’t think that there’s a solution other than magically creating more spaces or alternatively magically creating point to point public transportation that brings the workers to the offices/retail and then wisks them off to say, a dentist appointment and back during the middle of the day. You’d have to tear down a block and build a new 5 story mixed use with lots of underground parking. Like Newtonville’s going to have :>/. I wonder where the mail trucks will park at night?…..so many complications!
I feel as if there is an opportunity for the City for play a leadership role in coming up with come out of the box solution. I live in Newton Centre and one that comes to mind is somehow helping Village Center workers connect with Village Center residents who may have some off street capacity to rent to those workers. I have at least three residents on my street who have such arrangements. Could be a real win/win for some elderly residents trying to stay in their home but struggling a bit financially. There could also be a barter arrangement i.e. exchange parking for shoveling
Another potential is encouraging some of the Churches to do the same.
Just a thought
@Claire I believe there maybe legal implications for this, especially if the city officially endorses it. If a homeowner rents a parking space and the car is vandalized or broken into, there maybe liability issues. If a church or other business did it, they would likely have blanket liability insurance.
@Claire but now that I think about it, if a business or church is renting out extra parking, it can get messy with taxes and what not. In addition, the retail nd restaurant workers likely cant spare the money to rent a parking space by the month, especially if they work say 3 days a week. What this proposed ordinance will do is make it harder for those businesses to find employees, because given the choice they will take a job where there is more convenient parking.
What I think is missing here is a sense of empathy, for lack of a better word. These “all day parkers” are the real people that make your cappuccino; the person at the bookstore who helps you find a book; the person making the popcorn for your movie; the clerk at CVS ringing up your order. Using a term like “all day parkers” shows a lack of understanding of how the ecosystem works. It takes customers AND employees to make things work. In Chinese, the words for buy and sell are the same, except for the tone. There’s a relationship there, to buy, there must also be a seller.
If the real problem is that long term parkers harm businesses near the spaces they hog and that these parking hogs are employees of these businesses. why not put the responsibility on the businesses where they work. Let the employers instruct their employees not to use the nearby spaces that would feed the businesses that pay their wages and suggest that employers keep track of where their employees actually park and for how long . If they’re hurting their own businesses, let the businesses straighten them out through their private processes.
How about we allow all day parking by crystal lake and that area. I used to park there but then they restricted it and started ticketing so I moved to the lots. You see, afaik there aren’t any spaces that aren’t “nearby” someone’s business. If it’s not nearby yours it’s nearby someone else’s.
Also, many of the folks using the 12 hour spaces in Newton Center are taking the Green Line into Boston- and, I would think that’s not a bad thing for Newton to encourage, environmentally, although if they’re coming in from outside of Newton the perhaps those spaces should be put to 8 hours, because they aren’t patronizing the businesses as much. Because 12 hours is good for people taking the Green Line but 8 hours might discourage them from parking there and leave more spaces for local employees.