A detour for permit parking idea

Duane Lucia believes parking permits will be a simple solution to the problem of paying for garage space in the West End.

Alas, this is Boston, where quick fixes can be quixotic. And so could Lucia's quest for parking stickers in a neighborhood still finding its identity in a crossroads of development and conflicting interests.

Lucia, 51, lives in West End Place, a mixed-income cooperative complex of 183 units at the corner of Staniford Street and Lomasney Way in the belly of downtown Boston. He is divorced, with a son in college, and he pays $260 a month to park his car in the garage at West End Place. Often, the car doesn't move for days because Lucia works at Hill House on Beacon Hill. He pays for the privilege of vehicular storage unlike residents of Beacon Hill, who can park on the streets with a neighborhood permit.

''People on Beacon Hill are making six-figure incomes and getting their street parking and I'm barely scraping by," says Lucia. ''The people in West End must settle for whatever crumbs are thrown to them." He points out that many residents of the West End live on fixed incomes as much more neighborhood development is in the works. ''A lot of the buildings are being built around here because there's an affordable income component to it," he says. ''But there will be no affordable parking."

A West End parking permit program ''makes a lot of sense" to Bob O'Brien, the executive director of Downtown North Association, a group representing the commercial and residential interests of the West End and Bulfinch Triangle. After Lucia got an initial cold shoulder from West End City Councilor Mike Ross and waited 16 months for a reply to his parking permit query, he says, he went to O'Brien with the scheme. O'Brien, calling it an ''idea whose time has come," facilitated a City Hall meeting last July at Ross's office with representatives from the mayor's office, Boston Transportation Department, and the two West End civic groups.

The result was that Lucia was sent out to secure signatures on petitions supporting the plan. He says he got ''a couple of hundred signatures in August and September, which have been submitted to Mike Ross's office. And there are still petitions circulating out there."

Lucia also suggested particular streets in the West End and Bulfinch Triangle where cars with residential permits would be allowed to park. Lucia claims the Transportation Department knocked down those rights of way to a precious four: Blossom, Staniford, Merrimac, and North Anderson. However, Jim Mansfield, director of community affairs for the BTD, says he has no streets in mind.

''What has been proposed is a limited geographical area," says O'Brien, ''but it would be expanded over time." He is hopeful the plan ''will be approved by the end of the year."

Not so fast. It would appear a confusing fog envelops the issue. When asked about the program, Mansfield says, ''Nothing formally is going on with it." To date, he claims the department has received none of the petitions or filings. ''We're waiting to hear back from the community," Mansfield says. ''I would expect in this matter that it will not happen until the springtime." Mansfield points out it took years of battles for parking permit programs to be approved in South Boston and Charlestown.

For his part, Ross finds himself stuck in a dilemma by championing permit parking for the West End. Recently, he experienced sticker shock when he attended a meeting of the West End Council, a group of board members from neighborhood buildings. ''I said to them, 'Let's start a residential parking program in the West End,' " Ross remembers. Imagine his surprise when the body gave Ross a tow lot of protest.

''I don't understand why Mike is pushing so hard for this," says Ivy A. Turner, a resident of Whittier Place and a West End Council member. ''The more we look at it, the more we see very few benefits and many, many drawbacks."

According to Turner, the plan is not well-reasoned. ''These buildings have garage parking and people knew that coming in," she says. ''The metered parking and on-street spaces are what people use for their guests." Turner estimates there are 100 on-street spaces for 5,000 units.

Also, Turner fears that if Blossom Street, which runs alongside Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Burns Institute, becomes a permitted parking zone, the roadway will get cleaned only twice a month. Currently, Blossom is swept every night and cars must be moved by 2 a.m. Also, Mass. General provides discounted overnight parking to West End residents, but might dispense with the amenity, the West End Council worries, if a permit program is instituted.

''All of a sudden, this has become a big issue. We've never had letters," says Turner, who says she doesn't know Duane Lucia ''or what his base of support is."

''The more we look at it, the more opposed we become. . . . I just think it's going to hurt a lot of people and help very few," she says.

Lucia, meanwhile, continues to tilt at West End windmills. He is ''waiting for Mike Ross to get a meeting with BTD, so that we can bring it back to the community and see if there are any objections. I don't foresee any objections."

What do you think? E-mail Monica Collins at mcollins@globe.com.