SPARC Wins

April 20, 2010

I am pleased to report that the City has taken some good steps to lessen the impact of the parking regulation changes:
  • Main Thoroughfares-Twenty streets as Main Thoroughfares that are two hour parking between 8am-2:30am
  • Artist Permits- Created an artist permit parking pass program for people who rent artist studio spaces in Somerville but do not live here.
  • Business Parking Permits- Allowed flexibility in the hours for business parking permits (can be any 10 hour period between 8am-3:30am)
  • Landlord Permits- Created a permit that landlords can buy that is not tied to a specific license plate so that prospective tenants can use when they are seeing an apartment.
  • Regulation Change Implementation- On our encouragement, the City sent out mailings and made several automated CTY calls to announce the pending changes. They also gave our warnings for two weeks before implementation, delayed the implementation date and added extended hours at Traffic & Parking, including a Saturday date, to give more options for people to purchase permits.
  • Studying Demand Based Parking- demand-based pricing is an innovative method of parking policy which can be used to determine the optimal placement for parking meters, their hourly rates and times of operation, as well as other parking-related strategies to manage parking problems in areas of high demand. The City has received a grant to hire Nelson Nygaard, a national transportation consulting firm, to evaluate the feasibility of this model. (though SPARC does feel like it would have made more sense to do this study prior to implementing parking regulation changes).