Mayor Joe: Somerville, Stop Whining About Parking Already

When Mayor Joe Curtatone's Traffic Commission rolled out a series of changes to Somerville's parking policies, everybody in the city completely flipped out.

Yes, it's a very dense city, and yes there are chronic parking shortages wherever you go, and, yes, clever visitors to business districts like Davis Square often eat up all the nearby resident parking. But citywide resident parking zones and dollar-an-hour meters in Davis and Magoun Squares that remain in force until 10 p.m. and have two hour limits? That was too much for ordinarily mild and retiring Somerville to handle, and residents took to the internets and movie theaters to rage over the proposals. (Will somebody please tell these people what's going on with the T?)

Today, Mayor Joe told everybody to chill.

Well, okay, he also promised to create a committee to look into specific complaints about the proposed parking changes and to work with business and affected residents to mitigate their ill effects, proposing modifications like kiosks in lots that offer multiple payment options and longer time limits.

But, he also reminds us, "we don't have the big open lots and empty curbs associated with suburban sprawl. Parking is a scarce and valuable resource here, and we need to treat it that way." See, Somerville? Only right-wing surburban nutcases are opposed to parking restrictions!

He didn't answer Bostonist's question of why the heck anybody would drive to Davis Square instead of taking the T in the first place, but he did tell people to stop whining about having to pay to park there:

Paying a dollar an hour to park in a walkable entertainment district like Davis Square is not an undue burden - provided you can find a space and pay for it conveniently.

But our favorite graph comes when Mayor Joe addresses whether or not the new parking grab is all about the Benjamins—or, in this case, the mountains of Washingtons. Of course it is!

And for those folks who say, "This is all about the money," my answer is that these policies stand on their own merits, but we can't afford to pass up any legitimate revenue opportunities at a time when the state has cut Somerville's local aid by 30 percent.

Rock on, Mayor Joe. Under that well-coiffed pate is the skull of a champion.