Councilor seeks clean sweep for South Boston parking
Towing would be abolished, fine amounts hiked
As a neighborhood, South Boston has a reputation for thumbing its nose at parking regulations, with a preponderance of illicit space savers in the winter and a double- and triple-parking habit that turns side streets into slalom courses.
Perhaps it is fitting then for Councilor Bill Linehan to use part of his district to test a new parking system for residential street cleaning, which began in earnest this week. For starters, the city pushed back the start time for sweeping in South Boston by an hour, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., in hope that more people will have their cars at work and not parked at the curb.
But Linehan also plans to file a city ordinance next month that would go a step further: Eliminate arbitrary towing by private companies, but increase the city fine from $40 to $100.
"What I am trying to do is to be less punitive and more resourceful," said Linehan, who hopes his proposal could take effect in South Boston by midsummer.
The current enforcement of parking regulations for street sweeping is inherently unjust, Linehan argues, because the bulk of scofflaws get off with just the $40 ticket. Roughly one out of every four cars, however, gets hit with both a ticket and a tow, which hikes the tab by an average of $110. The city only receives about $25 for each towed vehicle, with the balance of the money going to the private towing companies that do the work.
"It's just arbitrarily administered when the tow truck happens to end up in your neighborhood," Linehan said. "That's unfair. There's got to be a better way to do this."
For example, when enforcement kicked off Wednesday, the city issued 1,222 tickets at $40 each. There were 342 unlucky vehicle owners, however, who also had their vehicles towed. Last year, the city slipped half as many tickets under windshield wipers on the first day of enforcement, issuing 606 tickets on April 15 and towing 238 cars.
Transportation Commissioner Thomas J. Timlin said the jump in tickets and towing is not the result of stepped-up enforcement. More tickets were issued because significantly more streets are designated for cleaning on Wednesday than on Tuesday, when the program started in spring 2008.
"The ultimate goal is not to ticket," Timlin said. "The ultimate goal is not to tow. The ultimate goal is a clean street."
If the later time is successful in South Boston, the start of street sweeping may be rolled back throughout the city, Timlin said.
To make the change in the one neighborhood, the city spent $675 to change the hours on street-cleaning signs with stickers. Streets there are now being swept from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., instead of 8 a.m. to noon or noon to 4 p.m.
For Linehan, the elimination of towing would bring equity to the system by creating a uniform penalty. His ordinance would also redirect the money to the city, instead of private towing firms, and increase the deterrent.
"With a $100 ticket," Linehan said, "everybody who gets ticketed gets banged good."
