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Central Valet Zone Now On Tucker

May 16, 2013 Downtown, Featured, Parking, Politics/Policy, Valet Parking 12 Comments

I’ve been writing about valet parking since July 2005. Years ago valets would take every on-street parking space on the block in front of the restaurant that hired them. leaving no spaces for the public to use. They’d place valet signs in bike lanes.

Finally the city to placed signs on the meter of the spaces that were permitted for valet service, including days of the week and hours of operation. The valets continued to take more spaces than given, again inconveniencing the general public. For example, until recently, we had three different valet stands in the two city blocks of Washington Ave between 10th and Tucker (12th), two were directly across the street from each other!

The city has permitted valet on Thursday-Saturday evenings after 6pm. Lately the city did something it should’ve done 8 years ago — created a central valet zone to cover these two blocks. So now on Tucker from St. Charles St to Washington Ave you have a bus stop and a valet zone. This area didn’t have any on-street parking before, it was just excessively wide.

Half the block from St. Charles St to Washington Ave is now designated for valet parking 3 nights per week after 6pm.
Half the block from St. Charles St to Washington Ave is now designated for valet parking 3 nights per week after 6pm. Copia, Prime 1000 & Mosaic customers now valet here.

Valet problems are solved, right? Wrong! The valet companies still feel they have the right to take public parking whenever and where ever they like.

Valets covered two meters in front of Prime 1000 on Monday May 13th, I took this photo at 3:50pm.
Valets covered two meters in front of Prime 1000 on Monday May 13th, I took this photo at 3:50pm.

Empty spaces mean the city isn’t getting revenue to pay off bonds to cover parking garage debt. Since it was before 5pm I was able to email the above pic to the appropriate people so they could come out and tell them they couldn’t do this.

I personally don’t care if valeting happens 7 days a week, as long as it is in the central spot on Tucker so the public spaces remain available for the public to use.

— Steve Patterson

 

Currently there are "12 comments" on this Article:

  1. JZ71 says:

    Agree! One word – enforcement! Unless the city permits valet companies to “bag” specific meters at specific times (and pay for the privilege of doing so), what they’re doing is theft. And if the city is letting them get away it (as they apparently are), the city employees responsible for this are either lazy / incompetent (and should be fired) or in bed with the valet companies (and should be prosecuted)!

     
  2. backprop says:

    Can individuals just remove the bags from the meters and throw them away?

     
    • samizdat says:

      Sure. What’s stopping you? Also, if the City seal isn’t on the bags, you could probably take one into the manager and ask for the permit, if the bags come with any such documentation.

      Or you just say **** it, and do as you propose. Probably easier that way.

       
  3. Mark says:

    I wasn’t aware that the city was doing this but it is long
    overdue. The valet situation on Washington has been getting out of hand for
    awhile now. I live in a loft facing Washington and the traffic jams that valet
    parking was causing on the 10th and Washington intersection were getting to be
    a big issue. I always thought that it was a no-brainer to move valet parking
    off to the side streets which see relatively little traffic.

    Speaking of parking on Washington, does anyone know why
    parking on the North side of Washington outside the Bogen has been restricted
    to resident permit parking? And why people are still parking there through the
    permits are out of date?

     
    • Terri says:

      Enforcement. Call Ms. Jones at the Treasurer’s Office. She’ll have the problem fixed in no time. Don’t believe me? Just call her!

       
      • This was one of the issues I discussed with her and her chief of staff on Tuesday, they said they have no control over valets.

         
        • Terri says:

          When valets place bags over the Treasurer’s meters, the Treasurer has no control over that? I find that absurd.

           
        • moe says:

          They were either serving you a load of bull or that office is seriously mismanaged.

           
          • Agreed, I know it has been a dance between Streets Dept & the Parking Div of the treasurer’s office for years. I also know if you or I would order a bag to cover a meter in front of our home or business they’d get involved quickly.

             
    • Amy says:

      Central Table in the CWE has started this practice as well. The 4 meters in front of the hall are bagged (well, 2 bags and 2 handmade signs). They seem to be there throughout the day.

       
  4. Mark says:

    As of this weekend, while the signs have moved to meters on the 10th street, the businesses
    on Washington are still bagging meters on Washington itself.

     
  5. John says:

    Personally, I think valet is a good thing for the City. It always seems to be easy to complain about but overall, I think that it brings more people to businesses that otherwise would go elsewhere. Just thinking of the restaurants you mentioned. There is literally no parking close and if I were to bring my wife and/or kids down there, I wouldn’t feel safe having to walk several blocks to eat. Nor would I feel safe leaving my vehicle in a random lot or on the street. Having said that, there are still guidelines that need to be enforced.

    All of the issues mentioned in this article and in the previous articles regarding the Peabody Opera House valet on sidewalks, etc. are one company. MVP. This particular company is also rated an F on the BBB. If you look hard enough, you will find several blogs created by their employees explaining how they are mistreated also. It seems that if employees aren’t happy, they will do whatever they can to cheat they system / City.

    I do agree that the City did a good thing by creating the valet zone. The Grove does something similar. However, I feel that it could have done a better job screening the company they hired to actually run the valet zone. The new company at the Peabody Opera House has done phenomenal. No issues whatsoever since taking over. I feel it’s only a matter of time before the city renegotiates their contract with this F rated business and gets someone in there more honest and upstanding. Let’s hope anyway.

     

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