Often, it's stop and no

They time their endeavors to the green, red, and yellow of traffic lights. It's during especially long reds that people asking for money have the most success.

Some drivers quickly roll up their windows. Some keep their eyes focused straight ahead or pick up cellphones to make a call. Others just shake their head and frown.

''Do me a favor; can I have a quarter?" one panhandler asked a driver yesterday at the corner of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue.

At some city intersections, motorists are besieged with requests for money: for track and field teams or for firefighters' charity funds. Or for train fare and a sandwich, as some homeless people say, looking for loose change.

But it's grown so prevalent in Boston this summer that drivers have registered dozens of complaints with City Hall, and now Councilor Maureen E. Feeney wants to regulate street soliciting, possibly limiting it to registered charities or requiring people who collect change to get permits from the city.

''There are reasons to be soliciting on public streets, but I think we have to set some kind of standards and parameters," Feeney said yesterday. ''They're just walking in and out of traffic. It's very unsettling for a lot of people."

San Francisco banned panhandling on roadways last year, and in Chicago, soliciting funds in city streets is restricted to charities. Some cities, like Tallahassee, are considering regulations.

Feeney is not certain which remedies the Boston City Council will choose, but she plans to hold a public hearing on the issue in coming weeks.

Feeney said she would like to institute regulations similar to those in Chicago. Charitable organizations there have to apply for permits to solicit funds, and they have to specify dates and intersections.

''I know for a lot of groups they really do need to solicit," Feeney said. ''But there should be some mechanism in place to know whether solicitors are representing real organizations or whether it's just a couple of kids with cans."

Across the nation, laws against panhandling have run into opposition, and some have been overturned on constitutional grounds. But legal specialists say that bans on solicitations made on public roadways are constitutional because of safety concerns.

''The law is really clear that the regulation of traffic is a legitimate public safety issue," said Mark Weinberg, a civil rights attorney in Chicago.

The problem, he said, is that politicians often enact such ordinances to clear undesirables from streets, not to serve public safety.

''It's kind of an all-purpose excuse to do whatever they want," he said.

One 18-year-old man who was asking drivers for money yesterday at the Melnea Cass intersection said that for many Boston panhandlers, soliciting from motorists is the only legal option they have.

''A lot of these guys here, that's how they support their habit; they're not out robbing and stealing and stuff," said the man, who would not give his name.

He was telling motorists he needed $3.75 for train fare to get home. He didn't tell them he lives in a shelter just down the street.

''There's a lot of people who listen to what I have to say and give me exactly what I want," said the man, who added that he made $50 in an hour Sunday night. ''I feel bad sometimes."

So do drivers, it turns out, when they say no, again and again.

''I feel guilty," Dorchester resident Cristina Todesco said, watching another man approach car windows with cup outstretched.

''They're very polite," she said. ''There's a nice guy who wipes my windshield, and when I say, 'I'm sorry, I don't have any money,' he says, 'That's OK.' "

Not every panhandler is so amiable. One Pembroke resident, who identified herself only as Ramona, said a man followed her all the way from the intersection, through a McDonald's drive-through lane, and asked her for money when she paid for her order.

''It just makes me nervous," she said.

Nearly all the 18 drivers interviewed at the intersection yesterday supported the idea of restricting direct solicitation to registered charities. But a few, like East Boston resident Francine Edwards, said Boston's panhandlers are harmless. ''They go away once you say no," said Edwards, adding that she is often asked for money at intersections.

''It's not like New York, where they start washing your windshield because they want a dollar," she said. ''We have well-behaved panhandlers in Boston."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.