WATERTOWN – Residents of a Massachusetts community are calling on the city to make changes to its winter parking ban because finding parking in the city has become an inconvenience.
Parking ban a “nuisance”
When Jean Dunoyer moved to Adams Avenue 25 years ago, he said the construction site across the street from his house was filled with willows and flowers. Last year that garden was destroyed and it is now a hole filled with gravel.
“What’s going to happen to this hole is it’s going to be a black tar pavement for six cars,” Dunoyer said.
According to the Watertown resident, a parking lot will be created for residents to use when the city’s winter parking ban goes into effect on December 2.
“I look at that with a lot of despair because I feel like we all have pavement here and the city is telling us we can’t use it,” he said.
From November through April, the Watertown Police Department prohibits overnight on-street parking from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Some residents told WBZ-TV it’s a major inconvenience.
Kevin Sanderson, a firefighter in Massachusetts, said, “I fully support my job. Because when the streets are packed with a ton of cars, it becomes virtually impossible to get fire trucks and other vehicles through the streets. “
The city prohibits cars from being parked overnight to make room for emergency vehicles and snow plows. “But to have it four or five months out of the year when there is hardly any snow, it doesn’t make any sense,” said Dunoyer’s wife, Gretchen Dunoyer.
Gretchen Dunoyer is also against the parking ban and while she believes a temporary ban could be the answer when there are snowstorms, her husband said, “The answer, of course, is you can only park on one side of the street.”
800 signs petition
The Dunoyers have on-site parking at their home, but for people who don’t have access to driveways and garages, the city has created a list of temporary municipal parking spaces at places like the public library, the police station on Main Street and public parking lots. -school parking lots.
Eight hundred Watertown residents have signed a petition asking the City Council to hold a hearing on changes to the winter parking ban that has been in place for years.
“Under the rules of the city charter, the City Council must hold that hearing within three months,” said George Proakis, Watertown city manager.
“If that happens, we need every citizen in this city who is available, who is not traveling and who has time, to come to this meeting,” Jean Dunoyer said.
