The City Council will discuss whether to continue the Winter Parking Ban after receiving a petition signed by more than 800 residents. The public an provide input at the special meeting scheduled later this month.
The City sent out the following information:
A Special City Council Meeting to discuss the Winter Parking Ban has been scheduled for January 21, 2025 at 6 p.m. This is a Public Hearing that has been scheduled following the City Council receiving a petition asking for the Winter Parking Ban be lifted. The Hearing will be held in the City Council Chamber in Watertown City Hall at 149 Main Street.
The Hearing’s agenda will be posted soon. Please stay up-to-date at watertown-ma.gov/meetings to find the agenda, virtual link, and more once it is posted.
Just another way to give someone a ticket
and collect money for town employees
to get their paychechs.
Overall parking ticket revenue for the city is $295K per year. Winter parking tickets are a fraction of that. In a budget of $204M, parking ticket revenue is about .001% of the total.
The winter parking ban exists to create safe streets for residents during the winter. It’s not at all about this tiny piece of city revenue.
And it’s spelled “paychecks”!
The winter ban should not be lifted. It is, indeed, a safety measure and it should remain as it is.
Those whose seek its removal should find a private place to store their property out of public places to which they have no rights.
Incidentally, parking regulations are not enforced as draconically as some have argued. Our City has been quite generous in that respect, but to some it is never enough.
Many of our streets are very narrow in the best of times.
When there is a lot of snow it would be impossible to travel if there are vehicles to make them even smaller.
Is it a major inconvenience? Yes, but the roads are what they are.
Do you have a better idea?
My street is narrow and it has parking on both sides. We have a lot of cut through traffic at alarming speeds. Drivers use our street to avoid lights on major thoroughfares. If the ban were lifted, snow piles might push the parked cars in, and narrow the street further.
I can see both sides of the isse, but in the end I must come down on the side of safety.
I have to agree here. My street is also narrow and people cut down it all the time. It’s a short street and they still fly.
It’s dangerous on a good day, never mind adding snow banks to it.
As much as I hate doing the whole rotate cars and waiting for everyone to come home so we are in the right order, I would still like to keep the bad.
As pointed out it is 4 months out of the year, we can all manage for safety sake.
The people that want to keep the winter ban probably have parking. I have a tandem driveway that fits 5 cars. I still want it removed. The parking ban is from 1am-6am for 4 months. If vehicles can go through during the day (Edenfield Ave. by the Middle School) they can manage in the middle of the night when there is less traffic anyways.
Most people do not make enough to pay for private parking.
It will be another issue when someone is walking home falls or gets attacked, and Watertown gets sued. I can barely afford my taxes now, I certainly do not want them to go up.
If people work until 12am, they would have to move their car every hour so they don’t get a ticket instead of relaxing or sleeping.
BTW-I have lived here for 61 years, there use to only be a couple cars per household. I remember my grandfather drove and my grandmother did not. Both of my folks did but that was only 3 cars.
What do you do if Family or friends are staying over, make them park their cars somewhere and walk when it’s 10 degrees out.
People can be so selfish and only care about themselves.
Hello Sandy, you and I are both lifetime long-term residents and know our neighborhood well. We have opposing viewpoints here. Please don’t speak for conditions on the street that I live on. I endure it every day all year long. What happened to Edenfield is a disgrace. Compete Streets was a complete failure here. Taking away 8 feet of roadway width without any changes to the on-street parking restrictions is a horrible situation for the residents. Every driveway is now blind to oncoming traffic since the street lacks” No-Parking” setbacks from the driveway aprons. Edenfield is now an unsafe alleyway created by inept and shortsighted planning. It is a badly failed experiment with permanent harm being done to another expendable neighborhood. Motor vehicles can park right up to the apron edge and obscure the residents view of motor vehicle traffic, bicyclists, e-scooters, students, and pedestrians while backing out onto what has become a much busier street. Larger commercial vehicles (Trucks and Vans) are allowed to park on the street overnight. Over 2/3 of all new motor vehicle sales across the country are now SUV’s and pick-up trucks. The city is shrinking the streets and the MVs parking on them are getting larger in size.
The main neighborhood safety issue is about the ability of fire trucks and ambulances to have enough space to gain unfettered passage on a road during and after a heavy snowfall. When plowable snow accumulates roadside, the encroaching snowbanks make it too narrow for first responder vehicles to get to the emergency location if motor vehicles are parked on the street while these conditions exist. I have witnessed these occurrences multiple times since Edenfield has been narrowed. First responders should never have to leave emergency vehicles at the nearest intersection to an emergency location and walk on foot. That is unacceptable. I have seen first responders waste valuable time sounding horns and going door to door searching for vehicle owners to have them moved out of the way.
I can’t agree that there is a widespread hardship issue when a see every 2-family rental home on my street with backyards that have been paved over with asphalt (with permits?) for more parking and not being used along with completely empty driveways. Most of the renter’s park on the street 24/7 which they find convenient for themselves. The streets are public use ways maintained by resident taxpayer dollars. Their use is an equal privilege granted to all residents by the city and not a right. They are not free permanent parking to subsidize overrented apartments and financially benefiting absentee landlords.
The city has a serious motor vehicle overpopulation problem that city leadership is deliberately avoiding addressing. It’s way out of their comfort zone. That would not be good for future business, profits, and more overdevelopment. All the city talk about street safety is fluff. The same is true with the environmental protection concerns. That all quickly becomes secondary when it conflicts with what Watertown is really all about now. Just peel back any decision or initiative that doesn’t smell right and it always leads to the same ends, more revenues, more profits, squeeze in more people and rental income, and more over development. Watertown is selling out its middleclass neighborhoods, they are on borrowed time. The city will stand up initiatives to reduce MVs and at the same time support policies that entice more of them to come in. They don’t walk their talk. Its fraudulence when they change zoning and reduce requirements for parking and do nothing to reduce the MV population or control on street parking. Watertown has very poor transportation alternatives to driving. No MBTA rapid transit service and limited bus service. Watertown will be the walkable city that you need to drive to with nowhere to park. Nearly 70% of employed Watertown residents commute to work by MVs. Watertown is in the perfect location to commute by MVs being surrounded by multiple highways and major road routes just minutes away. The newly added population who are moving to Watertown are bringing their MVs. The city leadership knows this is happening. Watertown’s neighborhoods are becoming parking lots and that is intentional. If you want to visualize what most of Watertown will look like in the future, just look east across the Charles River. Clean street communities don’t permit overnight parking anytime. (Belmont, Brookline). Communities with trash strewed streets allow it, (Brighton, Watertown). Watertown’s on street parking plan is that they won’t have a plan. They want that to be up to the residents to work out for themselves. That is typical Watertown leadership.
Remove the ban and just implement no parking during snow emergencies like other towns do. Pretty simple since it snows like once a year now. Y’all need to relax.