Living in Hoboken with a car is not an ideal situation but I have no choice when it comes to commuting to work. Each night I return home and join the sea of hungry sharks circling for a parking spot. On average I spend 30 minutes each night looking for a spot, and typically the spot I find is nowhere near my home. A law-abiding citizen, I pay $5 to the Hoboken Parking Authority each year, and those ugly stickers sit prominently on my rear window. I assume that by complying with this law I am afforded a certain privilege to accessible parking. Well, you know the saying, to assume makes a You Know What out of you and me.
See, the Parking Authority says you need a permit but they rarely enforce this law. When I walk from my car to my home after searching for a spot, I can usually count more than 10 non-resident cars parked in resident spaces. What bothers me is that the next morning well past the four-hour limit for non-residents in a residential area, those same unauthorized vehicles are still there. The Parking Authority apparently doesn't have time to enforce residential parking laws but if the meter on Washington Street runs out minutes before 9 p.m., (you don't have to pay between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.), you can guarantee you will have a ticket. My plight: One night last week I spent 50+ minutes looking for a spot. I finally find one on Washington Street but I have no quarters. I figure that since it is six minutes before 9 p.m. and because I have a permit, that I will be able to keep the spot without much worry. Wrong. The Parking Authority gave me a ticket at 8:54 p.m., just seconds after I left my car for the evening. Come on!! Can I catch a break here? If the Parking Authority will loosely enforce the residential parking rules, can't they turn a blind eye to a resident who was parked in a metered spot for just six minutes at 9 o'clock in the evening, especially since there was no residential parking available?
I recently wrote the Mayor asking him to keep his promise to fix the parking situation. I offered him suggestions like 1) chalking tires on non-resident cars parked in residential areas so that spotting violators is easier, 2) offering special rates for residents at the local parking garages, and 3) further restricting non-resident parking in residential areas in the evenings. Apparantly the Mayor doesn't think my ideas are very good, nor does he think an everyday citizen is important since he never responded. I understand parking availability for non-residents is important to the economic strength of the community. However, the community would not exist without its residents. Non-residents come and go but residents provide a steady flow of income to the town, so take care of us first!
Mr. Mayor, please give us the attention and privileges we deserve, and fix the parking situattion once and for all!
Jennifer Leone
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