What Did The Parking Consultant Warn Us About?

The issue of managing parking matters in the City of Hudson -- meters, revenue from meters and tickets, maintenance of meters, parking permits, enforcement, who is in charge of all these things, accountability -- is not a new one.  Desperate for help, last year the city hired a parking consultant to tell us what anyone paying attention already knew: Hudson's parking situation is a mess, things need to change with the times, and we must prepare for the future of a busier city that will lack ample parking and parking infrastructure.  

Specifically, and perhaps most crucially,  there needs to be a centralized Parking Department that deals with everything related to parking.  For far too long there have been too many cooks in the kitchen.  The way Hudson City Hall manages parking matters is inefficient and lacks coherence, which is hurting us now and will only worsen.

About 10 months ago, the consultant included this point in his thorough public presentation in front of our mayor, who couldn't seem to keep his eyes and fingers off his phone as the consultant spoke a few feet away.  As far as I can tell, nothing has changed at City Hall since that presentation, except that there seems to be a committee studying the parking consultant's study.

There's no shortage of evidence that change can't come soon enough at City Hall in regard to all things parking, including the critical revenues parking creates.

Inoperable and covered in tape
for at least 8 months!

How about the sorry condition of most of our meters?  Somehow, with all the quarters and ticket revenue collected, there's no money available for new meters or parts.  The Parking Study Committee is supposedly working on correcting this, if only at a snail's pace.  The money for new meters, it seems, will likely come from the sale of a property or two.

How about another clear and specific example of a problem plaguing our parking situation?  Go no further than the 700 block of the Columbia Street truck route, where, as of Wednesday, a food truck/trailer rarely open for business had been parked unmoved for at least 14 consecutive days and nights in one metered parking space and a few feet into the adjacent metered space. (It is no longer parked there.)  How many parking tickets do you suppose that trailer, which does have a license plate, was issued?

If you guessed 3, you would be correct!  All 3 were for meter violations -- on the 8th, 15th, and 18th of November, according to online public information.  12 of the last 14 days were ticketable days, but just 3 meter tickets were issued!  Not one $15 overnight wrong side ticket was issued, even though the trailer violated the rule at least 10 times in the past two weeks, as well as many nights prior to then when the trailer was parked in the same space(s) overnight intermittently.

It is as if City Hall is perfectly fine with allowing that trailer to occupy any metered space (plus some of another space, which is also a ticketable offense!) while ignoring the meter(s) and the overnight alternate side parking rule.  Of course, the trailer, parked where it was, prevented anyone else from utilizing the spaces to enjoy the city and, yes, fill the meters with quarters as everyone is expected to do.  For at least two weeks!  

I'm pretty sure that if the parking consultant whom the city hired last year were to be told the story of the food trailer on Columbia, he would nod his head and say something like, "Of course, this is no surprise at all to me.  This kind of thing, and worse, will continue to happen as long as the sprawling structure of those responsible for parking matters remains the same. Heck, I even wrote and talked about this in my report and presentation -- I warned the city about this.  Hasn't it been close to a year since I gave that presentation to the city, the night your mayor couldn't keep his eyes and fingers off his phone right in front of me?  By the way, has your mayor always been so rude and distracted?"

So, while a committee and the City Clerk look into purchasing and installing half a million dollars of modern parking meters to enter the 21st century, a trailer is allowed to park in more than one metered parking space indefinitely while the city essentially looks the other way, failing to enforce the simplest of enforceable violations among our 4 enforcement officers.  Why even have a pair of parking meters there if the owner of the trailer isn't required to fill them with quarters?  Why bother buying a pair of new meters to replace the old ones where the trailer parks practically for free 24/7?  Why wasn't the trailer given the boot and towed away by the city?

I think that it's time for another council committee to figure out how this situation with the trailer was possible and how to prevent it from recurring with this trailer, or anyone else's trailer or vehicle.  Better yet, hire another parking consultant to come up with a solution and present yet another report to the distracted mayor!  That ought to do it!

On a related topic, I suppose, City Hall recently posted an announcement on its website about the parking amnesty program that Kamal Johnson is so proud of and is most likely a complete waste of time and effort.  The picture of a parking meter in the background of the ad -- a very clean meter, of course -- is not a parking meter that can be found anywhere in Hudson!  It's close to ours, though much cleaner, and the sticker on the meter is most definitely not one that the city uses. 

Unsuitable for the website announcement!

So, instead of trying to find a decent looking parking meter downtown to photograph and use in the announcement on the website for all to see, the mayor's office chose to use an online stock photo of a meter that probably exists in a city that takes its parking matters seriously and coherently, and where a parking meter covered in random stickers or tape is completely unacceptable even for one day!