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Citizen complaint of the day: Confused SUV thinks it's a bicycle

SUV and bike rack

An annoyed citizen reports from Peabody Square in Dorchester:

So your policy of allowing folks to park on the sidewalk continues to lead to damage to the new infrastructure. Not only is the bike rack hit for at least the 2nd time a car is damaged too. Help!

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Comments

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At least the SUV isn't parked in the bike lane/shoulder, so we got that goin' for us, which is nice.

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s/he could be parked on top of a pedestrian.

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Did the SUV like it?

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It seems like most of the responses I see are something along the lines of... "We didn't see it", or "Not our problem".

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Complaint:

Truck #13201 just watched this guy throw his cigarette our onto the ground... Which is ironic because he's on "litter patrol"

Answer:

Closed. Case Resolved. I mark mooers spoke to the gentleman about this situation and he admitted it was wrong and said will never do it again.

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Perhaps the Recovery Act spending could have brought additional economic benefit to the area by adding parking with all the available space so businesses would get more customers also. From the picture, we see a new looking SUV whose owner likely has disposable income to spend in the area, but needed a place to park to do so. Stupid waste of recovery money by not adding parking.

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And I'm sure the residents who fought for years to get Peabody Square - which is the north side of the Ashmont T stop, basically - the way they wanted it.

But even if you do pave the entire earth, what kind of driver manages to not just tap a metal object bolted to the ground but to actually plow it under?

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There's generally a fair amount of parking around the square. Will it always be in front the business you want? No, but for how busy the T station is I'm always surprised at the availability of spots.

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No, but for how busy the T station is I'm always surprised at the availability of spots.

Surely, the more people using the T station, the fewer of them driving and needing to park.

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There are these people who find it cheaper to drive in a ways to get to the stations when they don't live near them.

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First of all, parking on the streets around the station is limited to 2 hours in order to prevent abuse like that.

Second, Ashmont is a major bus hub and bus connections are likely the dominating driver of ridership. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I do know that Forest Hills is like that, and I think it's comparable. Dorchester is a neighborhood where people ride the bus and walk to stations, by and large, and it has been ever since all this infrastructure was built.

Third, it's not likely a major draw from the South Shore or other areas due to location in relationship to the highway network. South Shore park-n-riders are more likely to end up at a station like Quincy Adams which caters to them, or riding the commuter rail.

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People park near Tufts to walk to Davis. Why wouldn't they drive from Milton to Ashmont?

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Or are you just being contrary for the sake of it?

The streets in Peabody Square are marked for 2 hour parking. So your commuter theory goes right out the window.

It's also probably why carreening has been able to observe that "there always seems to be spaces available."

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Hi Matt,

As someone that lives in the area, both you AND the previous poster are correct. While the streets next to Ashmont T are 2 hours, the streets a couple blocks away are not. Matter of fact, a lot of them are not even resident parking sticker streets. Therefore, if you walk down Elmer, Carruth, Ashmont St, etc at 8am the streets are packed and then empty by 5:30. That said, this "parking" job happened outside the Ashmont Grill, so I presume it was diner as opposed to a commuter.

W

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Lots of people use Arlington as a free MBTA parking lot for their jobs in Boston and Cambridge. With a subway station close to the square, added parking might actually serve the public and the MBTA more than excessive, costly to maintain, landscaping which pedestrians have to go around. Put meters, up to 8-10 hours at new parking locations if you like.

Did anyone actually witness the SUV damage the post/bike rack? Perhaps it was preexisting when the SUV parked there. Fire fighters do tend to drive SUVs and pickup trucks (rather than Prius), so its quite possible a BFD employee parked there.

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Did anyone actually witness the SUV damage the post/bike rack? Perhaps it was preexisting when the SUV parked there.

Look at the picture again - the truck is on top of the bike rack and it is lifted off of the ground to the point that the left rear wheel is barely touching.

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See, the SUV was just minding its own business when some damn hippie came along and crammed a bike rack under it.

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It looks like the City is trying to discourage parking in this area.

Mind you, I don't really frequent Peabody Square, and with the French government warning us that it is akin to Baghdad, perhaps we should be avoiding it, but in looking at Google Street view, there are bollards along the driveways on this block. In this photo, they are to the left of the SUV, and of course a bit further to the left.

The citizen would be best to get the BTD to enforce the parking regulations. Of course, I haven't checked the archives of Citizens Connect, so perhaps they have. Either way, people shouldn't be parking there.

If there is karma in this case, the SUV sustained damage. And if the citizen noted the plate number, the city could bill the driver for the cost of a new bike rack.

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Just a thought. The fire station across Dot Ave to the right has a driveway which can hold 2 to 3 cars max. Not that this ever happens in Boston, but sometimes police and firefighters create their own spaces. Once again, just a thought, not an accusation.

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