Somerville Parking Rule One Alderman Calls 'Unwelcoming' and 'Frustrating'

Ward 6 Aldermen Rebekah Gewirtz would like the city to reconsider a parking regulation that she says has been causing headaches for some residents.

"If you're new to this community … and all of a sudden you get a ticket, and you don't think you did anything wrong, and you kind of didn't, that's very frustrating, that's very unwelcoming, and people think, 'Wow, the city's trying to get me,'" she said of the regulation.

She was talking about the 48-hour rule, which says cars, even those with residential stickers, can't remain "in the same space on any street for a period exceeding 48 hours," to quote the city's traffic and parking website.

"Over the years I've gotten a fair amount of complaints about the so-called 48-hour rule," Gewirtz said, speaking Thursday at a Board of Aldermen meeting.

What happens if you go on vacation for a week and you don't have a driveway? she asked.

She said she recently received a note from a resident who was suffering from pneumonia and wasn't able to move her car. The resident received two tickets, Gewirtz said, adding the resident "felt so angry and disempowered."

Gewirtz lauded the efforts of the Department of Traffic and Parking, which has undergone significant modernization in recent months, launching a new website that lets people to pay citations online, among other things.

Still, Gewirtz said is was difficult to find information about the 48-hour rule online. (Somerville Patch found a reference to it on the city's snow-emergency guildelines, and it's also alluded to, briefly, in a 134-page "Traffic Regulations" document.)

Gewirtz said, "I can understand we don't want abandoned cars on our streets," which is partly the intent of the regulation. But, she said, "We need to have a thorough conversation" about the rule.

Ward 7 Alderman Robert Trane said he recently looked into the matter, and in his research he learned "the 48 hour rule is probably the least enforced parking regulation in the city."

It's usually only enforced if neighbors complain or after something like a snowstorm, he said.

In regard to the woman with pneumonia, "I'm sure they'll dismiss the ticket," he said.