Currently, Watertown enforces an overnight parking ban by prohibiting parking longer than one hour between 1:00 AM and 6:00 AM from approximately December through March. The primary rationale for this measure, which is enforced through the issuance of parking tickets, is to allow for better snow removal. The downside to such a ban is that many residents and their guests find themselves unable to store their vehicles anywhere near their homes overnight.
The Watertown winter parking ban unfairly penalizes those with fewer means who do not have access to off-street parking. During the cold, dark winter months, parents with young children, the elderly, the disabled and many others are asked to walk a mile or two in the dark to go park their car in a remote lot, which then fills up.
We understand that Watertown officials charged with the responsibility of making our streets safe are calling this a public safety issue, namely that emergency vehicles need to get through and if people park in the street during winter, at night, they cannot. But, if our streets have an emergency vehicle access problem, that is a problem which persists year-round, 24 hours a day — not just at night, in winter. Those streets need a different layout, one where parking is only allowed on one side, for example. We can fix that without leaving our vulnerable population desperately scrambling for some solution for where to put their car 4 months out of the year.
When we do get substantial snowfall, which is becoming more rare, a snow emergency can be issued for a specified time as Boston and Cambridge do. During those times, our community can band together and help those in need. Let us adopt some common sense and accept the reality that people in the 21st century need to use cars, and that cars are most useful when they can be stored near our homes. In a community as dense as Watertown, off-street parking for everyone is simply not feasible unless we want to pave over all of our green spaces.
For those of you who wish to live with better parking, please visit our website, download and sign the petition and mail it in to 12 Upland Road, Watertown, MA 02472
Jean & Gretchen Dunoyer, 17 Adams Avenue
Charlo Maurer, 5 Appleton Street
David Quilter, 12 Upland Road
Nan Decker, 106 Spruce Street
Rita Colafella, 56 Cuba Street
Kassie Richardson
Tyna Bitsoli, 67 Philip Darch Rd
Rachel Chasteen
Sandy Moynihan: 131 Lexington St
I really hope that our city councilors and town manager will take a serious look at our petition. This parking regulation makes so many people’s lives more difficult in a time when we have very few large snow storms. And when we do, an emergency can be called. Please support our families with young children, people who work until late night hours, our landlords looking for tenants, and all those without the means to buy a home with a driveway or garage and take the time to sign the petition.
Promoting policies that allows residents to bring more motor vehicles onto the city streets to compensate for insufficient off-street parking is in direct conflict with Watertown’s Climate and Energy Plans Transportation and Mobility long term goals. The city councilor who is coaching and helping solicit the petition signatures should know this and be walking the city talk instead of the usual pandering to special interest and activist groups at the expense of most neighborhood residents. The denser areas in Watertown are unkept and in decline. The city residents deserve cleaner streets for their very hard-earned tax dollars. Leaving motor vehicles parked bumper to bumper curbside 24/7 is a root cause of the problem and one of the main contributing factors. Street sweepers are ineffective if they are denied full access to do their job.
Watertown PD:
“Watertown Parking Regulations
Parking on all Watertown streets is prohibited for more than one hour between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. This regulation is strictly enforced from November through April.”
So it is not just for Winter. The PD is just cutting you a break during the other months. It mirrors what Belmont has, but they will ticket you every time they can.
Leave the regulation as it is.
Not clear on what “break” I am getting accumulating parking tickets for storing my vehicle on a public byway because there is nowhere else I can put it.
If you got the tickets in Winter, you were clearly forewarned, unless the concept of “Strictly enforced” eludes you.
Incidentally, unless your car is protected from the elements and not driven for long periods, you are parking it, not storing it.
Did you get “storing” tickets?
“unable to STORE their vehicles”? Did the author mean to say park or is this the new or latest term for on street parking?
I ask because in the past couple of years, I’ve seen it used in lieu of the more common and accepted word ‘park’ or ‘parking. Oddly enough it’s used by those that are opposed to or have a problem with cars in urban areas and will complain about ‘owners storing their private property on public roads’.
Just seems strange that a group of citizens looking to do away with the winter parking ban would choose to use a term that has anti-car implications.
As far as any problems that could arise for emergency vehicles being unable to negotiate any streets that might be narrower due to the combination of snow and parked vehicles, how have they been doing with some of the streets that have been permanently narrowed by design? For example: Edenfield Rd. and Nichols Ave?
I’m guessing that if they can mange to get down those streets fine, they should be able to do the same if cars are parked on the streets during the winter.
Mr. Green, in response to first responders ability to fully navigate road dieted streets such as Edenfield Avenue: No, fire engines are too wide to drive down the street when snow banks encroach the roadway and there are motor vehicles parked on both sides of the street. I have witnessed this on multiple occasions where assistance was needed and rendered by the fire department first responders on foot to the residence where called. Watertown has a serious parking problem on its residential side streets. Over renting units is placing profits over public safety. Watertown should fully enforce its residential parking ordinance in its entirety all year round.
Our city has many narrow twisting hilly streets. Street parking is brutal when you need to pull out of the driveway. It’s brutal for snow removal, and the only measure that makes sense from a public safety perspective is to expand the ban to all year. Plus, if you lift it, the ‘space savers’ i.e. the lawn chairs, the stray furniture will be right behind. The break that advocates are promoting is a mirage. People will start squatting and develop a sense of entitlement to a space.
I have to say, I find it very hypocritical of the town that this ban gets enforced but yet Toyotas employees take up blocks of spaces on N Beacon and Arsenal 6 days a week from 9-7. So we’re subsidizing a private company that doesn’t have sufficient parking but residents can’t leave their cars out overnight.