That’s right folks: Although tomorrow is Veteran’s Day and City Hall Offices and Schools are closed tomorrow, TRASH Pick-Up will still be in effect. So if your normal trash day is Monday – make sure to get your trash and recyclables and all of those leaves out to the curb by 7 a.m.
And…it’s that time of year again – The Overnight Parking Ban will go into effect on November 15th!
This is going to confuse so many people. We have been conditioned to know that on a holiday week, trash is delayed one day. A lot of people will not get this message and will be a day late and a dollar short. I think this is stupid and will cause a lot of problems when people don’t get their trash picked up.
I was going to ask why the city waited until now to send it, but after thinking about it some more, the timing of the message makes sense. What makes less sense is why, given that as the wholetruth says, most people are accustomed to having their trash out the day *after* observed holidays. Perhaps it is a trade to give the day after Thanksgiving off to the employees? Regardless, I have a feeling this will make a few folks unhappy.
If your trash is picked up on Mondays and you went away for the long weekend, you won’t have received the message in time. It should have gone out late last week. And the rule of thumb should be that if City Hall is closed, the trash is delayed.
For those of us with a short attention span I think the timing of the message was just right. Tell us just when we’re about to take the trash out. If I heard the message last week I would have forgot all about it by now 😉
We deliberately removed permission to receive emergency calls from code red because the city has often had an odd idea of what constitutes an emergency (such as school being closed for the day) Yet, we got the call anyway. We were not amused.
Another issue is that the caller ID did not identify the caller as the City of Newton. It just said “emergency”. As we all can attest, there are so many spam calls out there now to the point that many (myself included) who don’t answer the phone unless they recognize the number. Thus, the lack of clarity may have caused some folks to miss the message entirely. The city will have to do better next time.
I didn’t even get the call. I usually get calls for everything but not yesterday’s call. Luckily we were home this weekend.
Oh and screw the parking ban.
Monday isn’t my trash pick up day so I suppose I should keep my mouth shut – but of course I won’t. Mine is Friday and although the recycling gets picked up on time, the trash pick up has become erratic – as in whenever.
I don’t get calls of this type but if I did I’m with Jerry in needing to know close to the date – or as I’m taking out the trash – for me to remember the change. When I set up alerts on my phone, I always set two – one for one day before and another the day of.
I’m with Ted in not answering calls unless I recognize the name or number – although I sometimes answer calls from surrounding area codes. Due to laziness or maybe because I’m prophetic, I never changed my phone number from the one I had in Connecticut so most of the spam calls use a CT area code – including my old area code with the first three numbers of my actual number.
I’m with Mary when it comes to the parking ban. Screw it! Just mentioning it makes me angry. It’s terribly unfair, unnecessary and discriminatory.
As I’ve said many times before and right off the bat I want to make clear that I have plenty of parking at my home so my thoughts on this arbitrary parking ban are not based on personal gain – which always comes up whenever it’s discussed.
I’m hoping with our new mayor and some new councilors, it can be done away with unless snow is either predicted or piled so high it’s impossible to park. If not completely eliminated which it should be, then there has to be a compromise. This has gone on too long.
I know Waltham only has a parking ban when there is a snow emergency and living in West Newton my walks often take me to Waltham. Their roads always seem plowed just fine and in fact, last year their roads were routinely plowed better than the West Newton roads. It CAN be done! Councilors Norton and Albright have supposedly been working on something so let’s see if we can finally be done with this poor tax.
I didn’t get the call, so thanks.
And yeah, out with the parking ban already.
My call came through on my cell phone as country code 86, showing as an emergency from China. Would appreciate if emergency notifications were reserved for actual emergencies.
FYI you can see a trash-related calendar for your address if you enter it here: http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/dpw/recycling/default.asp .
You can even get a link to an importable calendar in several formats.
Doug, “Sorry, we couldn’t find that. Try typing your full address.” Is the reply I always get on the city website including that one.
Without a calendar, I know my regular day is Friday and with a holiday in the week, it’s Saturday, but lately it’s been just any ole day.
Try putting in the address of a neighbor who puts out trash on the same day as you. Besides telling you when your regular day has (or has not) shifted, the calendar also lists yard-waste pickup days (including the special ones for christmas trees) and hazardous-waste collection days at Rumford.
@MMQC: The City Councilors from West Newton and Newtonville are addressing the snow ban as I write. One immediate solution is to reduce the period of time from 12/15 to 3/30, and this may happen almost immediately.
Second: Your point on Waltham is right on: On Sunday 11/11, I met with 3 Waltham police officers to discuss the process in their city and Waltham only bans street parking in snow emergencies (as does Newton during the day). To satisfy concerns about wharehousing cars on the street, Waltham has a 24 hour limit on how long a vehicle may be parked in one location without moving. My understanding is no warning, you hit 24 hours and no movement, the car is towed. They use a marker system from tire to street for verification.
The West Newton and Newtonville Councilors are working on ways to make winter parking easier on the residents.
So outside of WSEs, folks want to make it not OK to park cars outside of the house they, you know, own but they are fine with Lime Bikes cluttering up sidewalks for days on end which, in addition to blocking passage, are the rough, green-equivalent of putting your old gs guzzler up on blocks in your front yard?
Fantastic, Councilor Cote! Reducing the ban is a good start and I think ultimately a system like Waltham’s could work. Thanks for your work on this. (As well as other councilors who are trying to come up with a good solution)
I’m also glad it’s being discussed- though I am concerned about invoking the “warehousing” rule, as the point of concern about the ban here in Newton is for residents.
Maybe permits are a solution?
Why would “warehousing” be any more of a concern for winter than summer?
Maybe if people “warehouse” their cars the concern is that they won’t move them during a snow emergency? I think the police could enforce a strict towing policy during a snow emergency. I’ve seen cars parked on our street during storms and they never get towed. In fact, they often don’t even get ticketed! However, they do get ticketed on days without snow on the ground or in the forecast so it goes to show you that the current system isn’t all that effective…
About that parking ban….
Proposal to end winter parking ban on select streets in Wards 2 and 3.
COUNCILORS ALBRIGHT, NORTON, COTE, BROUSAL-GLASER AND KELLEY, proposing to
end the winter parking ban on select streets in Wards 2 and 3.
The Public Safety and Transportation Committee discussed this at the last meeting. The audio is up but the report isn’t.
Thank you for that info! I’m in Ward 3, so this might be helpful for my family and others like us. I’m surprised that Ward 1 isn’t getting in on this…I know a lot of people are affected in those neighborhoods.
*cough* Ward 1? *cough*
The practical effect of the ban is not so much to prevent long term stationary warehousing in place, but to limit the practical number of cars a residence can support (e.g. for accessory apartments, teenagers, etc). If there isn’t reliable off-street parking year round, then it changes or limits the number of tenants a rental unit can have, and the number of cars a family can accumulate, and the net result is the curbs are much more free of cars year round.
On that note, if there isn’t a reliable and routine “Plan B” for winter parking for a car, the likelihood it gets off the road in a serious storm goes way up unless the city creates a lot of alternatives, but those alternative locations need to be plowed as well.
Our snow-banked street was nearly impassable when deluged with North student cars (before our previous ward-elected alderman guided the neighborhood in the process for putting in 2 hour limits) and for similarly narrow streets it could be a safety issue (during non-snow-fall nights) if filled with cars in the evening to the point of preventing large emergency vehicles to pass.
I wonder for how many homes the lack of a 3rd space is enough of a barrier for a 3rd discretionary car for high schooler assuming if the insurance cost alone is not enough to drive them off? I supposed in that situation the tickets are a cost of doing business as well.
I sometimes think an ideal situation would be to have electrical cars as primary vehicles but backed up by an older gas-guzzling beater for long trips if needed, but that car would need to sit somewhere.
Jack, you make some good points. When you bring up homes without off street parking for 3 or more cars, I’m not sure you are understanding the main problem this arbitrary parking ban creates. I’m not claiming the renter and 3rd car situation don’t exist. Of course at the same time, the city encourages as a partial solution to our housing problem, multi-family housing, accessory apartments and seniors taking in tenants which is direct opposition to not having off street parking.
But mostly in Auburndale, West Newton, Newtonville, Newton Corner and Upper Falls, the problem is having no off street parking at all at your home. The houses were built so close together, close to the street and on such small lots, there is no room to create any off street parking. These are the villages who also have the lowest priced rentals and most homeowners and renters with no off street parking couldn’t afford an extra car anyway.
It’s generally the residents in areas with plenty of off street parking for their family who complain the loudest every time the arbitrary parking ban is brought up – basically every year. The loudest protesters generally bring up scenarios that just won’t happen. And even suggest that the residents affected won’t move their cars if there is an emergency snow ban – lots of discriminatory thinking hidden in that statement.
In some neighborhoods, the problem is the lack of a FIRST space.
Also Ward 5? (Upper Falls) Lack of a first space is often a problem here, too.
There are a lot of reasons why there might be multi-car households. Sometimes you also get multigenerational families with extra cars or young professionals that are roommates where they each have a car. Living in Newton is expensive, so lots of times there are a bunch of adults living in one household. I’ve had friends in West Newton that were groups of roommates renting one place with a single-car driveway. We also have a 20-something neighbor living with her parents and their driveway also can’t accommodate an extra car.
With all of the proposed development, there will probably be more people affected by this. I know that commenters here on V14 have been talking about attracting young professionals, but most young professionals will need roommates to afford Newton. And as much as I’d like to see people relying more on bikes and the T, I don’t think most of Newton is there yet. Especially if people commute west…there’s really no way to do that without a car!
I wish they had identified themselves “City of Newton before the words Emergency Notice. That said, the message went to our answering machine since we were out of the house at the time. I got it when I returned and put the trash out accordingly. In the future I’d recommend that, in addition to identifying the City as caller that they put out two back to back notices—one a few days before the trash pickup date and the other the day before the pickup.
Banning on street parking should only occur when there’s a reasonable chance of a snowstorm. I live in Newton Highlands where parking cars off street is generally not a problem, but I feel there’s been a general citywide indifference to the plight of people who live in congested areas. I figure it’s time to take note when I see civic minded stalwarts like Doug Haslam get passionate about an issue.
Doug, Chris, and Marti — good point — its easy to forget how diverse the housing stock and density is across of the city.
One solution perhaps is to only allow parking on 1 side of street overnight in winter so the worst case narrowing is limited?
There are narrow streets in Brighton that Waze sends you down heading into Cambridge with zero off street parking. They must have winter workarounds.
Ultimately easing restrictions should immediately raise values of impacted properties to some extent. Perhaps if city could consider that improvement incremental over prop 2.5 limits the tax revenue could be seen as worth the tradeoffs.