Here Are The Facts and Pictures. You Be The Judge.

 

Here are a few recent historical facts.

On at least two occasions in the past 12 years, a common council member has made a request of DPW Superintendent Rob Perry concerning on-street parking that has nothing to do with overnight parking.  It's been a few years since I've heard a reprise of that request, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear it again soon, and for it to go nowhere at all once again. (It's one thing we can count on from the Hudson Common Council.  Members come and go, and the same old issues are brought up and shot down -- primarily by Rob Perry -- every few years.

Here, in nutshell, is the request that has been made multiple times:  Can we please have designated, lined parking spaces in our neighborhoods, just as there are on certain blocks of Warren Street, so that everyone knows where to park, to park properly, and to park efficiently?

New paid parking zone above 8th Street; 
no designated parking spaces.

And here, like a broken record, is essentially how Rob Perry has responded to the requests.

"Marked parking spaces take up too much space and actually decrease the amount of space available for cars to be parked in.  Plus, the cost of regularly painting several hundred lines year after year would be too high.  We just don't do it.  We can't do it." 

In another nutshell, DPW's (City Hall's?) approach to parking space lines in neighborhoods is thus:  The lines won't solve any problems, they will only make matters worse, and we can't afford them.  Ask me again in 5 years and I will give you the same explanation.  Next question.

Of course, there are several white-lined parking spaces surrounding Galvan's Armory building at 5th & State, as well as a few lined spaces on Carroll Street.  Several years ago, during a council meeting when I heard this issue come up for a second time, I asked Perry why there were parking space lines surrounding the Armory.  He said -- in his typical dismissive, blame-anyone-else fashion -- that DPW had nothing to do with those lines and that it was the Planning Board, as part of the approval process, who had given Galvan permission to install the lines.  (One of those designated spaces that Galvan created, directly east of the intersection of 5th & Short, had to be removed because it was the cause of at least a few "no visibility" T-bone crashes.  Can you imagine the stupidity of a city allowing a property owner to line our streets with pavement markings and no one at DPW is paying attention or gives a crap what they do?  Sure you can!)  As for the parking space lines on Carroll in front of a row of houses, I have no idea who originally installed them, why or how it happened, who made it happen, or if DPW refreshes them every few years.  It would be difficult for Rob Perry to explain why he is refreshing parking space lines on Carrol Street but doesn't want (or can't afford) to install parking space lines in any other neighborhoods, wouldn't it?

Fact two.  Prior to the removal of the city's hundreds of downtown parking meters late last year and early this year, every metered parking space was delineated with white lines (unless, of course, they had faded to nothing thanks to DPW).  EVERY METERED PARKING SPACE WAS DELINEATED, AS THEY ALL SHOULD BE!  Not only did every driver get the hint that they were expected to park their car between a pair of white lines, but even if those lines were faded to nothing there was always a parking meter to judge where it was appropriate to park.  The white lines were - and, where they still exist, still are -- a help to all drivers.  Drivers expect the lines to be there, and they make for a sane, respectful, and smart approach to paid parking.  They are an assist; an aid to support a world where we all just might have the chance to be on the same page and not argue or hurt or kill each other over a parking space (it happens).  Think of the white parking space lines as a traffic calming measure, an anti-road rage tool.  Do you think that could be the reason why DPW repaints the hundreds of lines every year or four?  They are kind of important for paid parking -- perhaps now more than ever -- otherwise they wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be paying to maintain them for decades, would we?

Prior to this year, delineated parking spaces (along with meters) hinted at something:  If you park your car on or near Warren Street in a white-lined parking space, you are expected to pay for that designated space by using the nearest parking meter.  However, if you park in an unlined space where no meters exist (in, for example, the 100 or 200 block of Warren), you don't have to pay for your parking space.  Leave your car in a free, unlined, unmetered space for as long as you like and you will not be ticketed or towed.  Either way, enjoy your stay.

But the latter half of that statement is no longer true.  You can now park in any of the dozens of still undelineated parking spaces in, for example, the first three blocks of Warren Street but be expected to pay for that space (if you notice one of the six signs or the one kiosk).  One block to the west, however, you can only park in a delineated space.  Those two spaces don't look alike, but they are no different:  If you don't pay up Monday thru Satuday from 9 -5, expect a parking ("meter") violation ticket!  How can Hudson city Hall not consider this wrong, messy, disrespectful, and unfair?

I don't think it's a stretch to say that having an entire paid parking zone free of delineated spaces is dumb.  And, additionally, allowing half of a paid parking zone to be without delineated spaces is even dumber, more disrespectful and more dysfunctional.  Let's face it, decades ago -- before Rob Perry's or Parking Captain David Miller's time -- a common council, mayor, police chief, or DPW Superintendent (or all of them together) with their eyes on the future needs of a successful, respectful, and orderly city thought it would make a whole lot of sense to differentiate metered parking spaces from free spaces with the use of simple painted white line in the street directly in front of every parking meter.  There are a few good reasons we once had painted white parking space lines for every downtown metered/paid parking space, and none of those reasons have anything to do with rocket science.  It's called common sense and common decency, two traits in short supply at Hudson City Hall.

Paid parking!

Long story short:  No one in their right mind at City Hall would have ever said, "You know what?  We should only create delineated parking spaces in half of downtown's paid parking zone.  It will save us money and confuse people.  There is no need to paint every metered space with white lines.  If anyone complains, tell them to direct their anger or fists at a parking enforcer."

But now that the city has "improved" paid parking with a smattering of $10,000 parking kiosks (one per block!!!!) and scannable signs high and low here and there that have taken the place of parking meters, and -- most critically -- the on-street paid parking zone has nearly doubled in area, isn't that precisely what Parking Captain David Miller and Rob Perry (and perhaps the mayor) are telling us all?  They got rid of all the parking meters, left the existing white parking space lines in place, nearly doubled the area of the paid zone, put up some signs and kiosks, but didn't create any additional delineated parking space in the new paid zone to show people where to park.  So, now it's a free-for-all in the new, improved portion of the paid parking zone but not in the old, improved portion? *

If Parking Captain (PC) David Miller or anyone at HPD remotely associated with parking were to be asked when they plan to have DPW install delineated, white-lined parking spaces in the expanded four blocks of paid parking in the upper and lower portions of Warren, would an of the following answers be acceptable?  (Would PC Miller be the correct person to direct this question to?)

"I see no need to bother with adding delineated paid parking spaces where they don't exist on Warren."

"Why are you asking me such a dumb question?"

"I don't understand what you are getting at.

"I haven't really considered the issue.  I'll talk with my people about it and get back to you."

"I don't have that information with me this month.  If you had asked me last month, I could have given you the data you are looking for.  Sorry."

"Ask Rob Perry, he's the one with the paint!"

 "I don't have time for this.  I've taken a sworn oath to protect and serve Hudson residents.  The last thing on my mind right now is a respectful and smart approach to paid parking."

"Why do you ask?  Did a visitor to the city make a complaint about the lack of white lines for parking spaces?"

Wouldn't the only acceptable answer to such a question be something along these lines: "Yes, that issue is being worked on as we speak.  I have been in contact with Rob Perry and the mayor, and we hope to have all of Warren Street lined with paid parking spaces by the end of the year so that there is continuity and no confusion for those parking downtown.   However, the lines will be an additional, unforeseen cost to the city that the common council will have to approve, and it could take some time for this oversight to be taken care of if we can afford to do so.  I wish I had thought of this last July when HPD took over parking.  By the way, the new parking system is going great, we are running on all six cylinders, and we are taking in loads of revenue."

Alas, we will get nothing but silence on the issue ("what issue?"), both from the common council and HPD top brass.  And, for at least the next twenty-five years, some paid parking spaces will be lined with white paint (or faded or completely gone), and some will not be, once again clearly demonstrating that the city's approach to parking -- including paid, parking lots, overnight, North 6th between State and Washington, etc. -- is a haphazard, nonsensical, disrespectful, ugly, embarrassing, and unnecessarily confusing mess.  I'm pretty sure, though, that HPD and City Hall prefer it that way, just like a certain wannabe dicktator in Washington, D.C., prefers things.  That is, a chaotic, inconsistent, and confusing mess that he can use to his and his cronies' advantage.

Paid parking?  (It looks so 
INVITING, doesn't it?)

 * Have you noticed that the powers-that-be in Columbia County government painted white lines for their several new employee parking spaces in front of and to the side of 11 Warren? At least I hope they painted those lines rather than Hudson DPW! Did Rob Perry okay the county painting a city street with white lines? Or did the Planning Board give them the okay? Was it Margaret Morris, perhaps? Of course, those new delineated parking spaces are available for the general public's use after office hours and all day and night on Saturdays and Sundays. Four blocks of Warren were added to the city's paid parking zone, and just one side of those blocks has delineated parking spaces thanks to the county! One out of eight ain't bad for a bitty city, now is it?  No, siree, that ain't bad at all!