Everybody Loves Free Parking!

In this age of political rancor, where the shrill screams of angry zealots have all but destroyed rational discourse, where familial bonds are torn asunder by strident, unwavering positions, and where the generous back and forth of informed discussion sounds more like howler monkey mating season, we at least have one phrase we can all agree on – “Free Parking!”

Free parking is something everyone loves – from the anti-evolution legislators to the groovy yoga gurus, from the buttoned-up shop owners to the macchiato- guzzling skinny jean hipsters– all of us, given the choice, would choose free parking. If Free Parking ran for governor, he’d win every vote. If Free Parking created a law letting teenagers earn their driver’s licenses via a hand puppet correspondence course, we’d name our pets after him. And if Free Parking were your girlfriend, you’d treat her right, that’s for sure.

Concord’s drivers have a complex relationship with parking. Remember the stories of families trapped in the Capitol Commons garage for days, held back by an unyielding soft rubber gate? Or the local property owner manhandling a female enforcement officer who had the temerity to leave a ticket on his windshield? Or the angry letter from out of towners Edna and Vern Walleye of Goose Dung, Wisconsin declaring they’d “Never return to Concord because of the parking tickets!” Are we falling to pieces over parking?

After dumping four dimes in one of the city’s remaining old-style meters, earning me exactly thirty two minutes, I head into the Police station, ready for a day with Concord’s Parking Enforcement division to see for myself.

Dave Florence, the city’s Parking Manager, greets me at the door and introduces me to my guide – Kate Kelleher, a seven-year veteran of the division. Every day Dave sends out three officers on foot, assigned to one of three downtown walking zones (North, Central and South), another to patrol the city in the team Jeep and one meter tech who collects the cash and maintains the kiosks and meters across the three zones.

Today, Kate and I have Central, right in the heart of downtown.
Before we head out, Dave explains the big change in parking over the past two years. About eighteen months ago, Concord entered the “Parking Pay and Display” age, decommissioning more than 600 single space meters in favor of seventy six Scandinavian-made full service kiosks, group meters that take cash or credit, print receipts and send text alerts when the machines need new paper, a fresh battery or a reboot. “It’s made things a lot easier,” Dave says as he waves us goodbye.

Kate and I start walking in a large loop from North State to Park to North Main to Pleasant and all streets in between. Kate’s job, eight hours a day, is to ensure citizens and visitors adhere to the rules, which boil down to the phrase, “No Free Parking.”

I learn fast this rule is not applied equally. A select group of elected state officials parks gratis on North State and Park Streets –the heavy yellow bags atop the gunmetal gray meters announcing this are hard to miss. Also, any drivers with state plates or those who sport a handicapped pass park for free. We see plenty of those this morning.

Kate says hello to lots of people. “When you walk the same blocks every day, you get to know names and faces,” she says, waving to Paul the UPS guy. Kate shares with me the games people play with parking as we stroll along. “Some people put the receipt upside down, and others jumble them in a pile on the dashboard hoping I’ll give up. People get creative.” Kate tells me stories about drivers putting their tickets on others’ windshields, feeding the same meter just before time’s up (aka, meter feeding) or using someone else’s expired handicapped pass. There are few things lower than stealing dear departed Gammy’s past-due handicapped pass to save a measly two bits.

As we turn off North State and walk up Capitol, Kate spots a crumbled ticket on the ground, the yellow envelope crushed into a wad of frustration. “Do they realize we keep track of these?” she says as she taps her computer. In a few weeks, Mr. Impulsive Parking Violator will get a letter explaining that, despite the attempt to camouflage the ticket as a Bit-o-Honey wrapper tossed in the gutter, he’ll have to pay the $10 for the ticket and upwards of another $30 for attempting such hijinx.

In fact, Dave Florence’s team mails out 200 letters a day to drivers across this city, the state and the nation. Failing to mail in your $10 violation within ten business days tacks another $10, and after twenty days, another $20 is added. Earlier, back in the office, Alison McLaughlin, the acting Parking Clerk, showed me one. And to you, Ms. Colleen Bovio of Texas, who received a $10 ticket in 2010, I say, “The city of Concord awaits your $40.”

From her hand-held computer, Kate can ping the database to see if a car belongs to Ms. Bovio from Texas or the thousands of others who’ve chosen not to pay. “If you have five or more unpaid tickets or if you owe at least $100, you’ll probably get the boot,” Kate tells me as she writes her first ticket of the day. The boot’s a nasty looking metal clamp that shows everyone you never carry change in your car or you just don’t care. The boot forces you to care, or at least to pay your parking debts. When I’d arrived at the station earlier, a gentleman was settling his $175 parking bill. Perhaps the magic words on the fat red sticker on his window, “We intend to impound your vehicle . . .” were enough motivation.

We’re on School Street, where most drivers are too cool for its parking rules. Kate writes three tickets in succession. A few minutes later, near the corner of Pleasant and North State, we spy a car with MA plates, no receipt in sight. I notice a fancy straw boater hat in the backseat - a vacationing gondolier perhaps? As Kate readies the ticket for printing, my gondolier arrives breathless. “I swear I was just going to the bathroom!” Sadly, he held no oversized oar nor spoke Italian.

Kate lets him off. “If he was holding a cup of coffee, he was definitely getting a ticket,” she says. Let that be a lesson – when confronting a parking enforcement officer about your non-existent receipt, don’t do so while balancing a $5 Salami Footlong and your giftwrapped dream catcher wind chimes.

We’re about hour or so into the morning and Kate’s given out ten tickets. “I average about fifty a day – most of them for expired meters,” she says. That violation is by far the most common in Concord. Of the 26,000 total tickets written in the past year, 85% (22,000) were for an expired meter, with overnight parking (985) and parking zone (598) a distant second and third. And to the lone double parker in the past year, kudos to your for your careless uniqueness (and your $25).

We’re on our third loop already, and it’s time for a break. Back in the station, Dave shares a few statistics, including the fact his department is completely self-funded. “No tax dollars are used to run this team. We are completely user fee funded.” This plunges me into an existential mind freak. Dave’s team exists to write tickets so they can exist to write tickets. Dude, I think I just blew my own mind thinking about parking.

Dave explains it’s not all about tickets. “Last year we had close to 550,000 transactions where people successfully parked in a downtown spot and paid their fee,” meaning that for every twenty six compliant parkers, there was only one rule breaker. Fines brought in around $320,000 last year, but the rules followers paid almost double that amount into the city’s coffers.

It’s clear we may love Free Parking, but we love paying for it even better. Besides, I paid forty cents about seven hours ago and didn’t even get a ticket. Free parking is possible, but it sometimes depends on who you know. Then again, just wait for the weekend. It’s always free on the weekends.