Spaced Out

No parking, but all choked up

For proper Bostonians, finding a legal parking space in the traffic-choked downtown area is no tea party these days. Until two years ago, resourceful motorists could take an illegal spot with little fear of reprisal: the parking-ticket collection rate was a low 15%. And practically any Bostonian could get a ticket fixed. "In a way it was a very democratic system," explains City Traffic and Parking Commissioner John Vitagliano. "Anybody who actually paid their tickets back then was obviously from the boondocks. The whole thing was a joke."

No longer. A 1981 state law transferred to cities and towns direct authority over collecting fines for parking violations. With that, Boston computerized its collection operation, bought 10,000 parking meters, hired 95 traffic officers and began using a wheel-locking device known as the Denver boot to immobilize cars with five or more unpaid tickets. In the past fiscal year, Boston took in $22 million in fines and $4 million in meter revenue, quadrupling the take before 1981. The ticket collection rate soared to 70%. "If we hadn't taken these steps," says Vitagliano, "we could have a gridlock so bad that the only solution would have been to pave over the cars and start again."

The crackdown drove some Bostonians to extralegal tactics. After being booted three times, one frustrated motorist tried to avoid prosecution for illegal parking by unscrewing out-of-state plates from neighboring cars and placing them over his incriminating Massachusetts ones. "It was simply impossible to find a legal space," he explains. Even the well-connected began looking for shortcuts. The Boston Globe revealed last month that Deputy Mayor Lowell Richards III had dismissed $1,080 in parking tickets for three children of Thomas McGee, the speaker of the Massachusetts house of representatives.

In the past, Bostonians probably would not have blinked at such favoritism. Not in these tight-space times. Some ticket-weary citizens reportedly spat on Richards and deluged him with irate letters. Lameduck Mayor Kevin White was lambasted when he declared that he saw nothing wrong with providing "preferential treatment" to powerful political figures who help Boston. Said White: "I do favors if I think it's in the best interests of the city." Said Tony Cennamo, a WBUR-FM radio station announcer: "When I read about the ticket-fixing, I got damned crazy, almost violent. I wanted to go to Mayor White and shake him." To help douse the fury, one of the errant McGees, Colleen, 24, paid the full amount of the fines. But the space race remains. Suggests Commissioner Vitagliano jokingly: "Maybe someone will invent an inflatable car that you could drive into the city in the morning, deflate, then fold up and put in your wallet." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.