Observations on Newbury Street Parking

The purpose of this assignment was to investigate and observe a particular element on Newbury Street. My part of the project, was to study parking issues on Newbury Street between Mass Avenue and Fairfield Street. To complete the project I needed to investigate issues like, parking pros and cons, how much parking cost? where do people park? Is it efficient? What does it like? etc. This observations were made on a holiday early this week around the hours of 4-6pm. For each block I gave an approximate 40-45 minutes time for this study.

HERE IS MY BRIEF ANALYSIS:

I begin my observations by starting to walk from Fairfield Street toward Mass Avenue. One thing that is inevitable about Newbury Street, and that everyone will agree with me, is that parking can be a serious headache for residents, visitors and commercial vehicles. To start, the scale of the street is too small to host all the vehicles that it attracts every day. For my experience as a long time street parking user at Newbury Street, there are days of the week and certain hours of the day that parking becomes almost impossible.

During the week, after 4 pm parking space becomes more difficult to find by the hour. One needs to be persistent and go around the block a few times before they find a parking space.

Some of the first issues I observed was that is very common to see double parking in the street. Usually it is a vehicle waiting for a parking space or a quick drop off. For the most part of the day, parking takes the entire block leaving no space go empty in the block. Because parking space is very hard to get, double parking is certainly thus it creates traffic jams in the street. At times, a particular vehicle can take about 15 minutes to cross 3 blocks alone. That is how bad traffic gets.








However this double parking happens quite often, it is illegal and drivers are always on alert for parking and police officers to avoid a ticket.

Another issue I notice on Newbury Street parking, since all three blocks length differs from one another, the amount of parking space availability also change between them. For instance, between Fairfiel Street and Gloucester Street, the block can only hold about 51 parking spaces. Between Gloucester Street and Hereford Street the block is shorter thus fits only about 36 cars between both sides. Between Hereford and Mass avenue however, the block is longer thus fitting the most amount of cars (about 50-60), but parking can be quite competitive with all the commercial trucks and valet.

Parking space is not divided neither painted on the pavement, so the way it goes is, each block will fit as much cars it can.






Because street parking is shared between visitors, residents and commercial vehicles, depending on the time and day of the week, it can creates another problem. Parking is already limited and by having to divide between three different uses makes it harder. Another factor about parking, is that fire hydrants are installed on the right side of every block. Fire hydrants are important for the city, but it takes from parking. You can also find in the sidewalks is the parking electronic meters for making parking payments.

THE FOLLOWING DIAGRAMS SHOWS HOW EACH BLOCK LOOKS LIKE:

New Bury Street Block Between Fairfield Street and Gloucester Street:

Street Lenght = 506.74 Ft




New Bury Street Block Between Gloucester Street and Hereford Street:

Street Lenght = 373.48 Ft




New Bury Street Block Between hereford Street and Mass Avenue:

Street Lenght = 652.03 Ft




While parking payments method is in still transition from quater meter to electronic meter, Newbury Street among a few others in the Backbay, was one of the first to adopt the eletronic payment system. With the eletronic payment system, in my opinion, cars no longer have a specifield parking space in the street. Now street blocks can fit as much cars is possible. A good example of that is Fairfield Street, a perpendicular street to Newbury Street. It still uses the old quater methods.






Because every block vary from one to the other in physical and usage context, parking spaces are limited for the public. Street parking are necessary to be shared between the local business and residents. Also, a couple of other factors that takes a parking space from the public are fire hydrants and handcap parking space. I Notice however, that fire hydrants are only in one side of the street and is always on the right side of the street going west.






I believe that an urban street like Newbury needs to provide parkings space for all different usages, creating a solution for this problem is not part of this research and documentation.

STREET PARKING COSTS AND PAYMENT METHOD:

Street parking is calculated by the minutes and the hours that one use as parking space. Drivers are charged $.25 per 12 minutes adding a total max of 2 hours per parking space ($1.25 for aan hour, $2.50 for twoo hours). Meter payments are control by parking officers that routinaly circulate the block to verify that each car has a sticker on the window as proof of payment. If drivers don't renew of remove their cars fom the space, the are subjected to a parking thicket in the amount of $25.00 per infraction. Now with the electronic payment methods, visitors can easy purchase their tickect using their credit cards or cask.



COMMERCIAL USE BETWEEN HEREFORD AND MASS AVE:






Commercial trucks and vans are very regular at Newbury Street betwen Hereford St and Mass Avenue. Specialy in the left side of the street adjancent to the retail stores and restaurants. Newbury Street is always a fun subject to study. The street provides a diverity in all physical context and social aspects. I have enjoyed doing this research!