City Seeks to Lift Space Limit : Downtown Boston in a Parking Squeeze

Ten years ago, when Bob Beal paid $7,500 for a parking space on tony Beacon Hill, some of his friends thought he was nuts.

This year, two spots in the same garage changed hands for $135,000 each--and 10 more buyers put their names on the waiting list. So who’s nuts now?

“I’d say it looks like it was a pretty good investment,” Beal said. “Wouldn’t you?”

Of course, not all parking space here is so expensive. A space in the garage under Boston Common goes for $110 a month. All you have to do is sign up and wait your turn--which, at the present rate, would come in about seven years, according to the state agency that runs the 1,500-car garage.

While prices on Beacon Hill and the wait at the Common may be extreme examples, there is no question that having to park a car in downtown Boston has become expensive, time-consuming and frustrating

Filled to 102%

On an average day, according to the city’s transportation department, 99% of the spaces in the financial district are filled by 10 a.m. By noon, the figure is 102%--the extra 2% representing illegally parked vehicles.

Although many major cities have similar problems, Boston’s is particularly acute. Parking space has been frozen since 1973, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency and a state environmental agency set a limit of 35,500 spaces in an effort to control air pollution.

Only a few cities have such caps--others are Cambridge, Mass., and Portland, Ore.--and, in the face of public exasperation, the city is preparing to seek a partial reprieve.

Early next year, said Transportation Commissioner Richard A. Dimino, Boston will propose adding 5,000 spaces.

The city also is trying to encourage ride-sharing by reserving spaces for pool vehicles in municipal garages, and it is looking to build new garages in outlying areas.

To get the new spaces, Boston will have to prove to the environmental agencies that lifting the limit “would not make the air quality situation any worse, and, preferably, would make an improvement,” said Barbara Kwetz, a state air pollution regulator.

To a large extent, Boston’s parking problem is a matter of simple geography: Downtown covers less than 2 square miles, and is bound by Boston Harbor on the west and the Charles River on the north and east.

The crunch also has been exacerbated by a building boom in which new office towers have added to the number of commuters and, in some cases, supplanted parking lots or garages.

City officials say there is no lack of parking regulation. Boston’s corps of parking officers has expanded by almost 50% in the last year, from 65 to 95, and the city has been issuing tickets at the rate of 150,000 a month.

Still, a $15 ticket can seem cheap compared to some garage fees. According to the transportation department, the average hourly rate across the city is $3.60, but in some areas, such as the Back Bay, it is as high as $6.

New Garage Sold Out

Several of the city’s largest companies--including New England Telephone, Fidelity Investments and the Bank of Boston--have formed an organization, Friends of Post Office Square, that broke ground last month for a 1,400-car garage under the heart of the financial district.

A good measure of the value of downtown parking space was demonstrated by the organization’s sale of 450 shares of preferred stock in the garage. Each share entitles the owner to rent a space in the garage at the regular monthly rate, expected to be about $340.

All 450 shares were sold in advance--at $65,000 each.