Hey, there! Log in / Register

Just in time for Opening Day: Mayor signs ordinance raising fines for parking in resident-only spaces around Fenway Park

Mayor Walsh today signed an ordinance raising the fines for parking in resident-only spaces around Fenway Park on game days from $40 to $100 - just one day after the City Council approved the idea.

The increased fine will remain in place through the end of the year - after which city officials will evaluate them to see if it worked to free up spaces for Fenway residents. The $100 tickets will be doled out to cars without resident stickers starting two hours before a game and ending two hours after.

The measure also lets the city increase the fines during concerts and other non-Sox events at the ballpark.

Councilor Josh Zakim, who represents the neighborhood, called for the increase, saying that given the cost of parking around Fenway Park, non-residents saw the old $40 fine as a decent deal.

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

It should be $75. There are a lot of resident parking spots that are just made up to make the city money. Where are you supposed to park. It's all a scam.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah screw the people that live in the city! Suburbanites are entitled to parking when they visit.

up
Voting closed 0

They can park in a parking garage, parking lot, or take public transportation. As a resident of the Fenway area I am very pleased they passed this.

up
Voting closed 0

Residents can also use a garage, lot, or public transportation.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm assuming not in the Fenway or anywhere in Boston, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

up
Voting closed 0

up
Voting closed 0

There are a lot of resident parking spots that are just made up to make the city money.

Huh? Resident permit stickers are free.

Where are you supposed to park. It's all a scam.

In a legal spot or in a garage. It's obscenely expensive, I'll grant you that, but it's what the market will bear so let the buyer beware (or just take Hubway or the T.)

up
Voting closed 0

If I would like to go to a game, restaurant or other places there are marked with resident signs everywhere and it is not worth taking a trip to certain parts of Boston because they have all of these resident parking only spots. The businesses lose business and the city makes money on parking tickets, etc. Most places are overly saturated.

up
Voting closed 0

I think the North End, the Back Bay, the Fenway, the South End, Downtown, and Beacon Hill are doing alright. Businesses seem to prefer them actually.

up
Voting closed 0

Remember that the people you're defending with this argument are the folks who decided to just park in a resident spot without a permit and just eat the fine. There really is no legitimate argument to be made that people should be able to do this.

What *would* be a legitimate argument is that the city should charge market rate for a far more limited number of resident permits, and then maybe it would be possible to free up more spaces for visitors.

up
Voting closed 0

If the city wanted to make money off resident parking they would charge more than $0 for a permit sticker.

Take the commuter rail or subway to Fenway. Or park on your couch. They charge a small fortune to park at Gillette for Pats games and that place is in the middle of nowhere so why would you expect there to be ample free parking at big events in a crowded city?

up
Voting closed 0

Take the T or pay to park in a lot. It's really not that difficult to figure out. Or take one of our residential spots and pay $100!!!

up
Voting closed 0

an event in the City shouldn't have the right to park on a PUBLIC street. This is nothing more than perpetuating an unfair entitlement program ("resident" parking) and a big revenue grab for the City.

Want fewer people to park on the street during Sox games? Then perhaps, instead of falling back on the old "it's waht the market will bear" nonsense, we should regulate the rates private garages charge for people to park. But much more convenient (and profitable for the City) to say - here's a public street, but we don't want the public to use it.

And yes, making the T easier and more convenient to use would also help in a big way. And that includes releasing more than two or three trains when the game lets out, as well as actually running those trains beyond Park Street and Blanford Siding.

up
Voting closed 0

Then perhaps, instead of falling back on the old "it's waht the market will bear" nonsense, we should regulate the rates private garages charge for people to park.

you are calling for parking communism.

not an insult.

simply a description of your desire to have central planning set prices for highly desired goods.

we know how that works out. i'll meet you at the time machine and help you travel back to the soviet union.

where you'll be happy

up
Voting closed 0

Setting the prices that garages can charge is just going to ensure that the garages are completely full hours before game time. Unfortunately the only sensible way to distribute the incredibly scarce parking (relative to gameday demand) in the Fenway area is via market pricing.

You are of course 100% correct that the city should charge for resident permits, but that's a separate issue.

up
Voting closed 0

Are the residents [or their landlord] not paying property taxes to the city?

up
Voting closed 0

But so are the people who don't have cars. I don't think they should have to subsidize drivers' lifestyles.

up
Voting closed 0

That property tax bill does not include an assessment for a car-sized chunk of the street.

up
Voting closed 0

A parking permit doesn't entitle you to a specific space - or even any space, actually.

It does, however, give Boston residents a better chance at a spot than out-of-towners who don't pay taxes here. Same idea as towns that limit access to beaches on "great ponds" (which by a quirk of law left over from colonial days are legally open to all Massachusetts residents) by limiting beach permits to residents.

I was a Brighton resident when the city instituted resident permit parking along the Brookline line. It was wonderful - for the first time ever I could get home late at night (this was back in the days when I was a reporter covering stuff like town meetings in Stow) and get a space, because all the Brookline residents who used to use our streets for free parking (because Brookline bans overnight street parking) had to leave.

up
Voting closed 0

But the price should be more than $0. Otherwise you end up with far more permits than available spaces, and an implicit subsidy running from the non-drivers to drivers, who are paying the same property taxes.

Money raised from permit sales can then be used to fund other needs... for example, the T.

up
Voting closed 0

More important than the revenue is the incentive to create more off-street parking. Developers will build more parking spaces in new construction if street parking is not free.

up
Voting closed 0

Because people coming into an event in the City shouldn't have the right to park on a PUBLIC street.

Uh, no. Street parking is not a right. (I hear they included it in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence—"that among these are Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Parking on the side of the Street"—but it got struck from the final draft.) And the people who live on that street certainly have a better claim to park on it than people who don't.

up
Voting closed 0

sweet resident parking spaces is to move to the neighborhood.

If you don't live in the neighborhood, pay up for parking or take the T. There is no third way.

Last I looked, plenty of businesses were doing fine amidst this setup.

up
Voting closed 0

...register your car there, pay the insurance, obtain the necessary additional documentation (usually a utility bill in your name at your address), go to City Hall, fill out the form, and walk out with your very own resident sticker.

Can you understand why people who went through all that aren't sympathetic with the spurious right of someone from God knows where to park on their street?

up
Voting closed 0

It's bad enough that I have to park here -- now you want me to LIVE here?

up
Voting closed 0

Build the next Fenway Park in Foxboro.

A nice state of the art facility that Sox fans deserve.

up
Voting closed 0

Is this enforced nights and weekends, particularly Sundays?

up
Voting closed 0

Law says 2hrs before, during, and 2hrs after games/events

up
Voting closed 0

Excellent. This will encourage suburbanites to take public transportation into the city and reduce traffic on game days.

up
Voting closed 0

In fact, you might see more cars looking for metered spots if anything, or areas that don't have the $100. Most people who drive to the area around the park an hour before a game have no idea where the hell they are going anyway.

up
Voting closed 0

But big fines will eventually make people catch on and should reduce it once the "who the hell was I supposed to know" crowd gets hit a few times.

Now, can we impose congestion charges like London?

up
Voting closed 0

well, you can park in a commercial lot during the games - if you don't like the rates, demand that the city regulate them

or you can park a bit farther out and, god forbid, take the train

what you don't have is the right to force long term residents out of their homes so you can drive in with your SUV whenever you want without a thought in the world for the folks in the neighborhood

cuz that ain't cool

the fine should be $100 all the time, and they should enforce it

btw it's a myth that they've created residents spaces just to make money - many more permits are issued every year than there are spaces - and in my block alone, appx 60% of resident spots have been removed while I've lived here, given away at no cost to "nonprofit"institutions or area businesses

the city is doing the right thing by protecting the few spaces we have left

up
Voting closed 0

I think the City does a pretty good job of ticketing/towing cars that park illegally in the Fenway neighborhood for Sox games. While I don't think there is a HUGE amount of cars doing this on any given home game day, it makes sense to risk a $40 ticket if the cheapest garage spot you can find is $50. $100 ticket is fair, there are plenty of alternatives to taking a resident spot. I have been working in the area for ~17 years and have never once parked in a resident spot.

up
Voting closed 0

there is a special place in Heaven for you for being so considerate

up
Voting closed 0