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Citizen complaint of the day: Symphony goers are as bad as Sox fans
By adamg on Sun, 12/17/2017 - 12:33pm
A disgusted South End citizen files a complaint about people heading to BSO concerts who park on neighborhood streets and consider their $40 non-resident tickets a decent price for parking:
Who do we (residents ) contact to petition for raised ticket violation charges - people abuse non RPP during the holiday (symphony shows and shopping) because $40 ticket is the same as a garage fee- raise the ticket to $100 like sox games. Let people who actually live here and are permitted here PARK HERE. Stop allowing this. Let me know who to escalate this to.
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Comments
The local garages about six
The local garages about six weeks ago were $25-$30, Havilland St, Westland and Christian Science Plaza, on a Friday night for sold out John Mullaney show at Symphony Hall. CSP parking was only 20% filled, clean, close and well lit. Still too much for me and I found free street parking partway to the MFA. But just saying.
BTD
has completely lost control of parking enforcement throughout the City. The majority of 311 complaints are parking related. Somebody, or a bunch of someone's are not doing their jobs. Why does it take a citizen complaint for parking violations to be enforced?
Totally agree. The resident
Totally agree. The resident parking permit enforcement is severely lacking. And if it's a Sunday, forget it. The parking officers don't work on Sunday and the Boston Police are responsible for enforcement, and they will only ticket if someone calls and if the parked car is causing a safety hazard.
Resident parking doesn't
Resident parking doesn't apply on Sundays. It's on the signage. If you want parking enforced on Sundays you will need to pressure for the rules to be changed first.
Unfortunately the resident
Unfortunately the resident rules near Symphony apply 24/7. https://goo.gl/maps/JSCev2UKKwt
I just took a look
It may vary by neighborhood? Beacon Hill has no Sunday exclusion -- it's 24x7 except for visitor spaces.
In Boston? I've never seen
In Boston? I've never seen Resident Parking signs in Boston that don't apply on Sundays. In Cambridge and Somerville, yes.
Visit the more suburban parts of the city
In JP, they have resident parking by the Orange Line only on weekdays.
In the Fenway, not too likely.
Resident parking is an entitlement program
that should be abolished. Public streets were built for use by ALL the public, and that includes parking.
And having resident parking restrictions on PUBLIC streets near a venue that the general public attends is beyond idiotic.
Oh, you and your car
Let's remake the world for the convenience of you and your car, and screw everybody else.
The purpose of resident
The purpose of resident parking is to increase the convenience of privileged residents and their cars, at the expense of everybody else.
Am I the only one who see's
Am I the only one who see's the irony in this comment?
What are your thoughts
on private companies given free use of public roadways by the City? Ie: Hubway bike stands and free parking spots for ride sharing vehicles.
Ride sharing companies lie
Ride sharing companies lie ZipCar pay the city to use on-street spaces. Hubway, I'm not sure.
There are multiple policy objectives here.
If the city has a policy of encouraging a residential downtown, then giving the residents a fighting chance at a parking space supports that objective.
Consider my neighborhood: about 1600 on-street spaces, about 5,000 valid resident stickers, a 10,000 employee employer running 3 shifts (MGH) at one end of the neighborhood and an 8,000 employee employer (State house etc) at the other end of the neighborhood. (My numbers may be out of date). With a sticker program in effect, someone living here has about a 1 in 4 chance of getting a space at any given time. Without a sticker program, the chances would be around 1 in 15 or so.
We the public, the owners of those 1600 spaces, through our duly elected government, have chosen to use them for the benefit of people living in the area and not for the benefit of two large employers. .
Okay...
But the same could be said of ALL free public parking. The streets were built for transportation, not storage.
Call your city councilor, then
Oh, yeah, you’re one of the suburbanites who want to park there.
Petition?
Two simple words: Louisville Slugger. Why do you need government's help?
Or, if vandalism isn't your thing, stand out on your street before concerts and advise arriving vehicles of the rules. I've called out a driver on trying to take an A-B spot from me before after I had turned in a driveway to switch direction on the street to get to it.
Ah, the mating call of the libertarian
Governmental regulation is wrong! Instead, you should use a baseball bat to fuck up somebody else's property when they do wrong by you. Then, you should rely on either the police being too incompetent to track you down, or bank on the fact that you're a white guy, so you'll probably avoid prison time.
Never change, Will.
That wasn't the mating call of the Libertarian
This is:
">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnxkfLe4G74[/youtube]
Right
A Rush song has literally never in the history of the universe led to mating.
Signed,
Someone who dabbled in Rush in HS
Don't need it to
I got some three weeks ago. All it took was a couple of drinks, my looks, and my witty banter.
I get angry when I see non-residents parking in resident
spaces in the South End, but I still believe in the rule of law. The penalties for vandalism aren't trivial here.
Would you really risk three years of hard time, plus a fine of three times the damage you'd wreaked, plus all the other ways such a conviction and internment would horribly change your life, for the momentary satisfaction of your vigilante justice?
Even if I could admire your apparent political philosophy here (I don't), the risk/reward assessment seems absolutely bonkers to me. There aren't many situations in which I could imagine myself resorting to violence, but a parking violation isn't even in the same time zone as those, let alone the ballpark.
The illegal enforcement of jungle parking law by self-entitled barbarians in City Point is what drove me to move from there back to the South End. I never was victimized in a space-saver dispute, but the ambient threat poisoned the neighborhood for me: the idea that the guy next door might become a violent criminal over a parking space.
The South End's ban on space savers is more than just a practical take on managing a scarce shared resource to me: it's a token of the kind of basic civility that is essential to sane living in dense urban spaces. Resident spaces are no different.
For what it's worth, I've seen plenty of enforcement of resident space violations in the areas of the South End I've lived over the past 15 years (which don't include the one over by Symphony), especially on busy weekend nights. I'd favor a plan that limits the number of parking permits per household -- one of my wealthy neighbors had resident permits for 11 vehicles a couple years ago -- and one that charges a sliding fee according to the size of your vehicle: as the neighborhood has gotten more prosperous, the number of gigantic SUVs has increased exponentially, which doesn't help.
Stupid City planners expect concert goers to bicycle?
No. More parking garages and spaces are clearly needed. Generally older crowd with BSO memberships spend lots of money in the city with dinner, parking, concert, and often have mobility problems meaning they won't be bicycling or taking the bus/train. Some still even get dressed up.
Stupid 20-30 something transportation idealists have no clue of what its like to be 50+ years old or even to drag kids around.
The solution isn't higher priced parking tickets, unless revenues go to build more parking.
Not bicycles
Ever wonder how the Symphony stop on the Green Line got its name?
Little-known fact: Actually
Little-known fact: Actually named for Edward Q. Symphony.
Maybe there should be a fee
Maybe there should be a fee for resident permits, and the money should go towards more service on the E and 1 bus during Symphony events.
And the Mass Ave stop on the Orange Line ...
... is only a couple of blocks away.
I'm 50+ years old
A bike would be my preferred mode to get there. Would have been when I still had kids to literally tow around.
But the MBTA works mostly fine for off hours things, too. You can also park legally and walk - even with your kids! If you are mobility impaired, well, then your traffic and parking prospects are greatly enhanced by other people not driving.
Just sayin.
There are plenty of garages
There are plenty of garages around Symphony hall with relatively inexpensive parking. So much so one of them went out of business from a lack of patronage and was converted into apartments & condos. A lack of available, affordable parking in close proximity to the venue isn't the problem. Massholes are the problem.
Totally true.
There are plenty of places to park near Symphony (or the Huntington or Jordan Hall) if you decide to drive. The problem is assholes who think they can get away with resident parking when they're not residents. Fenway has a bigger problem though -- a much bigger venue with potentially more violators.
Totally true.
There are plenty of places to park near Symphony (or the Huntington or Jordan Hall) if you decide to drive. The problem is assholes who think they can get away with resident parking when they're not residents. Fenway has a bigger problem though -- a much bigger venue with potentially more violators.
I love this:
I love this:
"Massholes are the problem."
It covers so many of the local controversies we come across.
Then residents are welcome to
Then residents are welcome to pay these inexpensive garage rates. There's no law against this, like there is against the majority of people using the majority of street parking 24/7.
Plus half the metered spaces on Mass Ave were removed for the cycle tracks. Allocating space to bikes is fine with me (if done sensibly), but why is it always the nonresidents who get squeezed out? They should have kept the ratio of metered to permit spaces the same.
Yeah
I guess after spending that money they have none left for a Uber/cab, eh?
The City doesn't know shit
They allow developers to build without parking and traffic and parks Ng is a mess. Look at South Boston and the South Boston waterfront.
They allow businesses, bars and restaurants, to open with no provisions for their employees or patrons to park. Have a look at West Broadway Shitshow in Southie. Those that don't take their Raxor scooters or Hubwsy bikes, Uber of Lyft there creating traffic jams all night.
"spend lots of money in the city"
How much of that "lots of money" goes to compensate the residents whom they displace and inconvenience. Not one cent, chum. The "it brings money into the city" argument is so much bullshit; that money only ever lines a few pockets and goes right out again.
I'm sure a significant
I'm sure a significant percentage of residents chose that particular neighborhood because of the classical music and culinary offerings. They add value.
I'm 60
and if I want to go to an event at Symphony Hall or Jordan Hall, I ride my bike or the #1 bus or the Green Line. Which I believe is now accessible at Symphony station (though not at Hynes).
Wealthy Threshold
Raising the fine will raise the pain threshold. But a crowd like the BSO will always have enough patrons sufficiently wealthy to not care about the fine. And if they are entertaining clients, it’s even a business expense.
If residents think it's such
If residents think it's such a nice thing to pay garage rates, they always have the option of parking there. Of course it's easier to support rules that give you preferred access to a public resource by taking it away from everyone else.
In cities with a more sensible transportation policy, nonresidents can park for a few hours in any permit space, or can pay to park there.
The city does not issue
The city does not issue tickets during symphony concerts and fenway events. they do not want to offend the tourist.
Holiday concerts
I hate to spoil a good old dudgeon-frolic agains all those Symphony-going plutocrats, but the Boston Symphony Orchestra doesn’t do holiday concerts. Their last performance of the year was on December 2nd, and their next is January 4th. Everything in between is the BSO’s bastard stepchild, the Pops, or an occasional third-party rental.
I take the T to the Symphony, and after the concerts the station is completely mobbed, so there are plenty of others doing the same.
Thank you
I planned on posting exactly this today. People from the suburbs come in for a date at the Pops and park anywhere.
I guess taking the MBTA to a
I guess taking the MBTA to a show is too icky for the Symphony Hall crowd.
What's the story with the
What's the story with the street cleaning tickets? They started to raise the ticket from $40 to $100 (without any towing) but last I heard was years ago when it did it in Charlestown and they declared it a success.
Personally it sounds like a great idea. For $60 a pop the city should be able to do a pretty thorough job cleaning under parked cars with blowers and pressure washers. And it's a lot more efficient than towing the whole car around town.