07/30/2006
Hoboken Reporter

Parking issues 

Dear Editor:

The articles in your July 22nd issue about the ill-fated robotic parking garage as well as the parking officers suspended for ticketing the "politically connected" only proves that the Hoboken Parking Utility is in serious need of reform. However, there are additional parking issues that should be addressed: the excessive towing fees for illegally-parked cars, the inconvenience posed by temporary paper No-Parking signs, and the serious need for additional white parking lines to be painted. The citizens of today's Hoboken should not stand by and let the HPU play the same games anymore at our expense.

Problem 1: Towing Fees. Mile Square Towing is contracted by the city to tow cars that are illegally parked. They charge an incredulous $80 towing fee as well as $25 per day for storage. This is unreasonable, since they don't notify the car owner after towing but expect them to guess. Their customer service and storage area are substandard at best. It would be of interest to know what kind of contractual relationship they have with the city. And what happens if they cause vehicle damage during towing, as that robotic garage did when those cars fell down and got destroyed!

Problem 2: Paper white 'temporary no parking' signs that pop up everywhere. Sometimes they are put on trees, are partially obscured, or are not put up enough time in advance to warn people adequately. Just what are the regulations on use of these signs, and why does it seem that every construction project in town is using them to take up valuable sidewalk space for their trucks? Example: you park your Mercedes in a legal spot, go out of town for two days, and you return to find a white no-parking sign and your car is gone, only to make way for a flatbed cement truck!

Problem 3: Parking Lines. It would be helpful to get new white lines painted on many sidewalks to better indicate the legal parking range for cars, as well as to paint white dividing lines at diagonal parking areas so as to increase the available number of spots. Often many cars parking diagonally take up two spots because there are no dividing lines, and it is difficult to gauge a proper separation between cars.

A group of citizens should organize a committee to discuss parking issues and proper solutions to the city council. Most committees in City Hall are politically appointed, so we need new ideas to come from outside the political spectrum because the problems cannot be solved by more empty election promises. Anyone interested in forming such a group can email me at: hobokenparkingissues@yahoo.com

Sincerely,
Al Bozulic