Car warsA good parking place is hard to find downtown—and with more meters, it will cost you February 26,
2007 11:11:04 AM
A CHANCE TO BE HEARD: Caprio, who has heard it all, gives aggrieved parking ticket recipients a fighting chance.
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As part of its effort to bring Providence into the modern era of professionalized government, the Cicilline administration wants your quarters — lots of them.
After years in which hundreds of the capital city’s 721 parking meters were inoperative — and precious meter-less spots could be found, for example, on the hill between the State House and Canal Street — City Hall is more than doubling the number of meters and fast vanquishing the free rides, so to speak, of yesteryear.
John A. Murphy, a genial man who carries the Kafkaesque title of revenue development agent for the city, calls this an effort to “regularize” the Providence parking meter experience.
And who could blame the city? All those meter fees add up to some mighty big bucks ($17 million in outstanding ticket revenue just since 2003) for cash-starved Providence. Besides, the presence of meters is thought to discourage motorists from hogging prime parking spots during the most populous work and shopping hours.
Yet since Providence functions as the entertainment capital of the state, as well as the seat of government and business, seemingly small changes can create a bigger difference. While many motorists no doubt consider paying to park a necessary — if not particularly welcome — cost of doing business, the combination of twice as many meters, often-scarce parking, and heightened enforcement can combine for a subliminal message that the city is less welcoming than in the past.
A big part of Providence’s appeal has stemmed from its identity as a cheaper alternative to Boston. While a downtown business group supports the changes to help stimulate the turnover of parking spots, one has to wonder whether it will discourage motorists from visiting the area.
Even before this new push, parking in Providence wasn’t without its share of headaches (the city’s overnight on-street parking ban is another issue). So it’s hardly a surprise that some people long for those permissive days of the parking past, when free spots were more plentiful and broken meters stayed broken.
The hunt is on
Parking in Rhode Island’s capital city remains a largely feast or famine affair. Metered spots are plentiful if you drive downtown, in the Jewelry District, or on the East Side at the right time (which can vary wildly, depending on what is happening. Thanks to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, PPAC, Lupo’s, and downtown’s many other attractions, parking can be tough when you least expect it).
Woe, then, to those unfortunate souls making a last-minute dash when the crush is on. It’s not unheard of for the parking lots near Trinity Rep, for example, to charge $30 — as much as it costs to park in a Manhattan garage for a day — for a few hours of slivery automotive real estate.
Replacing a few of the many surface lots that fleck downtown with multi-level garages would offer a number of benefits, increasing the number of parking spaces while also offering a more efficient use of land. Yet in contrast to the city’s stepped-up meter revenue-enhancement effort, construction of new garages remains an elusive goal, although one that the Cicilline administration continues to target.
For those unfairly maligned with a parking ticket, Frank Caprio, the presiding judge of Providence Municipal Court — and the charismatic star of the WLNE-TV (Channel 6) cult hit Caught in Providence — lends a sympathetic ear. To his credit, the judge (more about him later) eschews the revenue implications, focusing instead on the timeless conflict between a lone individual and a powerful bureaucracy.
Seventy-two years ago, the introduction of the parking meter (in Oklahoma City, of all places) marked a new clash between two competing sets of American ethos: freedom and unfettered mobility, on the one hand, and capitalism, private property, and revenue enhancement, on the other.
And you know what? The parking meters are winning.
A WINNING CASE: “Are you shittin’ me there’s a sign in there?”
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Cicilline gets down to business
When he came to town some years back, revenue development agent John A. Murphy says he quickly learned “the culture of parking in Providence, and that’s the culture we’re trying to change.”
The implication seems to be that the old practices — like how parking meters were operative on Saturdays, albeit without enforcement during the Buddy Cianci era — were the bite-sized equivalent of a no-show job, the quadruple-pension, getting tickets “fixed,” and other dubious Rhode Island classics.
Mayor David N. Cicilline’s technocrats have responded with a variety of newfangled measures, including 17 solar-powered multi-meter stations that accept credit cards and cash. There’s the placement of cameras at a number of intersections (whose tickets are handled administratively, meaning they don’t result in increased insurance points), and the hiring of ACS, a collection agency with national experience, to track down those many millions in outstanding parking ticket revenue.
According to director of administration John Simmons, the city hopes to raise the number of parking enforcement officers, from between 10 and 15, to 20. It is also considering introducing use of the so-called Denver boot (which renders the cars of persistent scofflaws inoperable), as well as a camera-equipped vehicle that can determine whether parked cars and trucks are stolen or “boot-eligible.”
The foot soldier of the parking wars, however, remains the humble parking meter.
Providence’s old mechanical meters, which were subject to breakdowns and irregular timing, have been replaced with more methodical digital counterparts. Of the 721 meters in place (hundreds of which were broken) when Cicilline took power in 2003, many have been replaced and many more added, says Murphy, bringing to 1270 the number of meters in the city. With more additions this spring, the total is slated to rise to 1500 meters.
The areas being targeted, with the guidance of Providence police and the city’s traffic engineering department, include side streets downtown and in the adjacent Jewelry District, as well as those scattered un-metered spots in otherwise regulated zones.
The drop of even an increased amount of quarters may seem like a piddling contribution in a city that had a $583 million budget in fiscal 2006. Yet although parking meter revenue is fairly slender — $688,292 in the fiscal year that began in July 2005, compared with $399,109 for the same period two years earlier — Providence Municipal Court generates almost $6 million annually in additional ticket revenue. Then there are the millions more in outstanding fines.
While the city is clearly prioritizing all this as a growing revenue stream, Simmons describes parking meters as part of the urban social contract. “Without meters, people were parking all day,” he says. “That doesn’t happen with meters.” He describes the going rate for a metered space — $1 for an hour — as reasonable, and says a daily rate can be had in downtown’s many surface lots for $8 or $9.
Dan Baudouin, executive director of the Providence Foundation, a supporter of the city’s parking strategy, acknowledges that no one likes parking meters, but he calls the new approach overdue. “If you can remember what the meters used to look like before the new ones went in, there were actually plants growing out of some of them,” he says.
With the intended goal of greater turnover, “this whole concept of inexpensive space for short-term parkers is pretty at¬tractive,” Baudouin adds, and motorists should have “a greater chance of finding an inexpensive space on the street.”
Seen another way, though, Providence’s increasingly omnivorous hunt for parking revenue signals a confiscatory and unwelcoming break from the old days, when broken meters and lax enforcement were part of what made the city work.
Anti-poverty activist Henry Shelton, executive director of the George Wiley Center in Pawtucket, says parking meters are a regressive form of taxation, since they have a harsher impact for people of less means, and they represent “a back-door way of getting money.”
Considering Providence’s 100 most-ticketed streets, as described in a report a few months back by Tim White, WPRI-TV’s investigative reporter, it seems as if the city goes after college kids and some other easy targets (Benefit Street ranked fourth, after Richmond, Pine, and Westminster, with 1330 tickets). As White’s report noted, Smith Street — home to the State House — was absent from the top-100 list.
Yet low-income people are also likely to get hit with parking tickets, Shelton says, since attending hearings for welfare, Food Stamps, or similar reasons often takes two or three hours — longer than the allotted time on a meter.
Were you caught in providence?
Four days a week, scores of people march into Providence Police Headquarters, getting a knowing look from the officer in the lobby. He directs them to a line of individuals waiting to feed their name and license plate number to a clerk behind a glass partition.
The mundane procedure sets the stage for entry, through a set of double doors, to the vastly entertaining world of Frank Caprio, the presiding judge of Providence Municipal Court, whose WLNE-TV show Caught in Providence has been a cult hit in Rhode Island for more than a decade — and for good reason.
The 69-year-old judge mixes idealism and a limber comedic sense while giving the aggrieved a chance to be heard. As Caprio says, “People have a strong desire to tell their case,” Even if they wind up paying a fine, “they just want to tell their side of the story.”
While Caprio and three other judges consider serious crimes in the Municipal Court, disputed parking tickets are a staple. Since these cases don’t involve questions of moral turpitude, and because many of the appellants are working people struggling to get by, the judge is compassionate even with those who receive fines, taking into account how paying might disrupt their lives.
Although Caprio, one of 10 children born to Italian immigrants, has long since become a member of the Rhode Island establishment, he appreciates the similar challenges faced by newcomers past and present. “That’s my point of reference,” he says, citing how treating people with respect goes a long way in shaping attitudes toward government institutions.
“When I first went on the bench, quite frankly, I was skeptical of the excuses that I would hear,” says the judge, who has served on the court, in a city council-elected position, since 1985. “I have to say I have grown with the job. It’s just like life. There is no substitute for experience.”
There’s an added consideration, “that of society and of the city, but I’ve never viewed my role to be a revenue-enhancing agency of the city,” he adds. “That is not the function of the judiciary.”
Signs of discontent
Caprio estimates that a majority of appeals of parking ticket are successful, usually because of lack of proper signage or obstructed signs.
To buttress their cases, people often bring photos — or sometimes whole digital cameras or camera-phones — for judges to inspect. (Last fall, I successfully appealed a ticket issued on Sheldon Street, in Fox Point, after showing how the sign was enshrouded in a thick nest of foliage from a nearby tree. Walking me over to a clerk to be processed, the court officer handed back my printed-out digital photo while asking, sotto voce, “Are you shittin’ me that there’s a sign in there?”)
In his 22 years on the bench, Caprio has heard every imaginable excuse, from motorists who said they got a ticket because they had to go to the bathroom or since they needed to remove a cake from the oven.
During one recent TV episode, he questioned a woman cited for parking two months earlier in a prohibited area on Gray Street. “I have an explanation,” she said. “I was having a baby.” “Let me see him,” responded Caprio. A man in the court’s spectator section hoisted a fetching two-month-old boy in the air. “The case is dismissed,” concluded Caprio with a smile.
“The show is addictive,” enthuses Caught in Providence’s producer, Joe Caprio, a younger brother of the judge and a former videographer for Cianci. “It’s real life. It portrays incidents in life that everyone can relate to.” He calls his brother “a throwback,” adding, “That’s what people like.” Indeed, Judge Caprio, who tries to offer helpful advice to those before him, says he has heard back from people who credit him with having made a positive difference in their lives.
The only problem with all this, of course — particularly for those hit with an undeserved ticket — is how fighting it takes time out of your schedule and may even require you to pay to park, in the used-to-be-free garage across from the Providence Police Department.
The future of parking
While technology continues to change — Vancouver, Canada, recently became the first North American city that allows motorists to pay parking meters via cell phone — the purpose of these coin-collectors, virtual and otherwise, remains constant.
In Providence, Mayor David N. Cicilline, whose Transit 2020 Working Group is studying the issue, has expressed support for the development of a state-of-the-art, low-emissions rapid transportation system. Suffice it to say, though, even with growing awareness of the threat posed by global warming, cars are not about to suddenly disappear as Rhode Islanders’ preferred mode of transit.
One persistent Providence parking dilemma is the city’s ban on overnight on-street parking, which was established in 1929. Although the prohibition works fine for those with a spacious driveway, it also leads to the paving over of yards, increases in the surface temperature in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods on hot days, added costs for tenants, and other adverse effects.
City officials say a pilot overnight parking program in Washington Park and parts of Elmwood has attracted a modest degree of participation. Still, as evidenced by how residents of lower Academy Avenue were slated to conduct “a peaceful demonstration” last month to protest the city’s overnight parking ban, some people are still vexed.
The presence of more parking garages in downtown Providence is another unmet need.
John Simmons, the city’s director of administration, would like to see another 2000 to 3000 parking spots in garages, and the use of multi-level structures would represent an improvement, he says, over downtown’s plentiful surface lots. He acknowledges that the construction cost — north of $25,000 a space — makes progress difficult.
No wonder, then, that former mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr., whose family owns a number of downtown lots, told the Phoenix in 2005, “It would be easier to understand a conversation with the prime minister of Russia than to try and build a parking garage.”
Although developer Arnold “Buff” Chace has for several years planned a combination residential-retail-450-space parking garage at Weybosset and Union streets, on the former site of Travelers Aid, a softening housing market has stopped it from going forward, at least for now.
Simmons says a couple of developers, including the Procaccianti Group, are talking about building a garage near the former police station in LaSalle Square, although the governor recently pitched selling one of the city’s other target sites, state-owned land near the Garrahy courthouse, as part of his budget proposal.
City officials, meanwhile, say they haven’t gotten much feedback about Providence’s increasing use of parking meters and the other parking initiatives — which they tout as “improvements.”
Maybe Renaissance City motorists are just resigned to the inevitable: they want a place to park, they need a place to park. And one way or another, the city is going to make them pay.
Email the author
Ian Donnis: idonnis@thephoenix.com
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