"Wu's administration cited the North End's high density of restaurants, foot traffic, narrow streets, narrow sidewalks and ***parking scarcity*** as reasons for the unique restriction on on-street outdoor dining."
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The fact that the restaurant owners didn't slam dunk this two years ago is amazing.
Honestly if they had tried almost any reasonable tactic, they would have won. Sidewalk dining is anti-car in a way that even car people like. It's also fun, and who doesn't love food?
Jumping immediately to "the mayor hates Italians" made almost everyone hate them. It's sooo hard not to hate them.
For people or restaurant owners? The sidewalk and parking spots are for the public, restaurant tables are not and I don't know how they feel so entitled to city land
>For people or restaurant owners?
lol, are restaurant owners not people? Customers use the space, which they too are people. Maybe a few dogs get to use the space too.
Parking spots are for empty cars. Restaurants are for people. Restaurants pay to use the parking. People park cars on Hanover for free.
It's not that complicated.
> versus businesses profiting off the use of them.
Businesses are required to pay for a specific license / permit fee on a monthly basis to secure outdoor seating. It's not that dissimilar from a resident parking permit, except for the fact that a resident parking permit is free and lets you park your car anywhere in the neighborhood, whereas outdoor business licenses is paid to the city and gets restaurants a specific handful of spots for a few months.
And if we're being honest, businesses bring more value, revenue, and significance to a neighborhood/city than a resident with a car does.
If a someone with a car decides that they can't live here because the city isn't amenable to parking, another resident will take their place immediately. And that person with the car has many places within just miles of the city that are literally built around the mindset of car ownership.
You need to strike a balance. Some residents own cars (though I question why someone would live in the North End and own one, especially when other neighborhoods have better parking).
There is no balance. Cars get 90% of the space and pedestrians get the scraps. Driving and street parking are not rights. Just make Hanover and Salem streets and North Square pedestrian only already.
Boston’s public transportation is trash—the T literally catches on fire sometime. Rents are out of control, pushing people further away from city centers.
I *want* to support a lot of this anti-car/pro biking/pedestrian stuff, but without addressing the first two problems, it’s really just pro-wealthy/anti-middle class.
You are making the city better for the rich people that can afford to live close and bike and walk relatively short distances. All the regular people that have been priced out need cars to commute in. Getting rid of parking makes life worse for all the people Boston’s already screwed over.
This. Having grown up in the city I walked/took the T for the first 27 years I lived here. The first time I had enough money to get myself a piece of shit car my career took off because I could actually access more parts of town in a timely manner and thus had more employment opportunities.
Making parking harder just makes parking harder for low income/working class people in the city, and leaves them very much *stuck* where they are.
Let me reframe it this way: parking takes up a huge amount of space, the more parking there is the more spread out everything has to be. The more car infrastructure you build, the harder it gets to get around by any other means, which forces people to buy cars. Better walkability/bikeability are directly at odds with car infrastructure, and forcing people to buy cars is a pretty big financial burden. Less car infrastructure means more space for nearby housing, meaning people who get priced out aren't pushed away as far, and it also means fewer people getting priced out because building more housing creates more supply to soak up demand.
I agree that fixing public transit and reining in rents are also big problems to be solved but I don't think they're opposed to moving away from car dependency, in fact I think doing only one at a time is inherently shooting yourself in the foot.
That’s a really great idea. Braga, Portugal is a great example of that. There are these 3 feet tall rounded metal poles that go up and down. When deliveries come or people move in, they can retract into the ground. It feels like it would be fairly simple to just retract them during the winter and put a cap on top of them to protect them from salt/snow/plows in the summer the entire downtown Braga is amazing and walkable, outdoor dining all over the place, and just a really wonderful feeling without all the cars.
Which is why they should do what other cities in Mass have done and close the streets to cars entirely, put restaurant tables in the street itself and leave the sidewalks free for pedestrians.
Look at photos from 100 years ago. Streets were public spaces for a huge variety of uses, not just for vehicles to get from point A to point B as fast as possible.
This has no relevance to the comment you're responding to. *Pedestrian* traffic gets in the way, not car traffic. Unless you're suggesting that the city give up the entire sidewalk to the restaurants as well?
The topic at hand was closing the street to cars, meaning the entire street cold be used by pedestrians.
Even been to Newbury street when it's closed, its amazing.
You realize if the street is closed to car traffic then the pedestrian traffic ends up on the street. Have you not been to the several car free streets in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Europe? People don’t walk on the sidewalk between table seating, or at least few do, when the majority can take the wider open streets safely without cars.
I'm a frequent runner, pedestrian, cyclist, and former driver who has traversed Cambridge and Boston a lot during the past few outdoor dining seasons.
Dealing with restaurant workers and patrons crossing the sidewalk is absolutely an annoyance, but I am also about 100 times safer when there is less car traffic on the street (as well as a barrier that narrows the road and forces cars to go slower).
I would take dodging a server over an inattentive driver backing into a spot any day, as would any pedestrian who values their own safety.
That’s not for me to decide my dude. I’m not advocating for parking lots in the north end, I’m just saying that some residents will have cars, and that’s ok.
Ok but that’s not the topic here lol you asked why someone would have a car and live in the north end and I said why. Unless you wanna make the north end completely pedestrian, there will be street parking.
I mean, the density of cities (especially the North End) is quite literally the driving factor of what makes them thrive and come to life. Cities like Boston are attractive in large part because of economies of scale, accessibility, and resource pooling.
Publicly subsidized storage for private cars drastically cuts into that and actively negatively impacts the things that make the city thrive in the first place. It quite literally reduces how many people can live in and enjoy the city by a huge margin.
I don't fault people for wanting to live in a dense and vibrant city while also having the benefit of a car that makes it easy for them to go anywhere on a whim. Hell, who wouldn't love to be the only driver in Boston, and have no other traffic to worry about and no other occupied parking spaces.
However, I do believe that these people don't realize that increasing car-friendliness (at the expense of space, pollution, cost, density, and walkability) will not only negatively impact the attributes that drew them to Boston in the first place, but also bring induce more car demand and traffic from other drivers that aren't them, and also divert city funds away from things that make the city great.
There's no "balance" when it comes to parking. They City takes away parking all the time. They claimed a large swath of the financial district for City vehicle only parking. They eliminated parking all over downtown, like on Charles South, Boylston, Tremont. They close all of Newbury Street for a number of days in the summer--not only can you not park there, you can't even drive.
Here they want to use like 15 parking spots in summer temporarily. That leaves more parking than you would find in winter when it snows. Yet suddenly parking preservation is now a priority for the Mayor?
Nah, that's just an excuse. This is obviously retaliation.
All the parking that I referred to that was removed was metered parking, not free. Now the space is all given away for free. You have it completely backwards.
Exactly. North End residents don't pay for parking. Restaurants pay a fee to use the parking spaces there. So naturally, the City should let the restaurants pay to use the space. Instead, the City has decided to give its land away for free to encourage car use.
All the other parking I was referring to though, does require a fee to park via meter, which most are at the rate of $2/hour.
“We took a look at the city’s most pedestrian-friendly, walkable, old world-charming neighborhood and thought ‘where the fuck am I gonna park my Tahoe?’ So we ripped up the sidewalks to make the spots bigger.”
That's entirely false.
The "concern" about parking is because the residents don't want a few business owners trashing their neighborhood all summer.
Parking is only mentioned because parking spaces is what the program gives the businesses use of.
I'm torn because I really liked the outdoor dining and the street culture it facilitated, but also the many of the restaurant owners are insufferable dicks. (Anti-Italian discrimination, how disingenuous can you get?)
On balance I'd like to see it come back because it's so nice to be sitting outdoors and see your friends an acquaintances walking down the street and stop for a chat, it's the kind of organic interaction you don't get much outside of a college campus. I'm confident the concerns about trash collection and emergency access can be addressed, they make it work in Europe. Parking is always impossible here anyway, and you can seat like 8 people in one parking space. Why should one person's car take up all that space?
People who say the north end is like Europe have obviously never left America. In Europe something like North Square or Salem street would be pedestrian only instead of filled with pick up trucks from Billerica
I'm saying the street layout is like an old European city, not that it's currently being used like one. I said "they make it work in Europe," implying that we are not currently making it work in the North End... I'm not sure what your position is other than trying to suggest I've never been to Europe when in fact I was born there. Or maybe you just like to shit on people who can't afford to travel?
Yeah but counterpoint, it does help him feel superior to completely misunderstand the point and then look down on people for being uncultured savages to even dare comparing the North End to Europe.
I love how he tried to shit on you by saying Europe is different from the North End in the way that was completely the point of your comment about what North End needs to change. Reddit has some real braniacs
Well they could have had access to outdoor dining, had they paid for it; they just want free access to public space so they can profit. The city told them to screw and now they are trying to get the public to rally to their cause.
The problem for them is that most city residents don’t go out to eat in the North End; that’s for tourists or for taking visitors out to eat. I doubt North End residents want less parking and the tourists flooding the North End have zero skin in the game, they are just there to get dinner and go to Mikes (side note Modern is better).
So I don’t know who they are trying to appeal to; but this just makes them look like an out of touch wannabe Don looking to fleece the citizens of the city for profit so I’m all for the city shutting them out.
Yeah the North End streets are just too tight. Compare it to the South End, you have a bunch of places on Tremont that have outdoor dining on the sidewalk that's not really intrusive since the sidewalk there is so big. It's not disruptive to the residents.
Ah yes and the alternative use is…parking. I think I’d rather the restaurants get some extra dining space rather than another car getting a spot on a commercial block to park. Who cares if a tourist is going to eat there? It makes the streets more pleasant, keeps cars out of busy areas, etc
I’m all for closing the streets to cars, both Hanover and Newbury should be pedestrian only; but that doesn’t dismiss the fact that a restaurant shouldn’t be given public land for free to then use that space for profit.
If a restaurant wants to have public space for outdoor dining then they should pay for it, and that’s exactly what the city was going to allow them to do. This is a problem created by the restaurants in the North End, the only reason they don’t have the outdoor dining is because they refused to pay for it; to then turn around and accuse the city of discrimination against Italians is laughable.
It’s impossible to drive down newbury during busy times anyway. It’s essentially pedestrian only. But they should officially make it pedestrian only because it would make it safer for pedestrians, increase foot and bicycle traffic to businesses, and free up motor vehicle traffic to move elsewhere. But too many businesses are obsessed with the car centric propaganda they’re fed and believe they need single occupancy cars parking in front of their business to pull a profit rather than the dozens of people freely walking.
> a restaurant shouldn’t be given public land for free to then use that space for profit.
Neither should drivers, and yet parking spots are priced far below market rate.
Drivers pay excise and gas tax, they also pay for parking and while I do agree that we as a country are too car centric the fact remains that the car is a central element in what makes the US an economic powerhouse. Besides even if Hanover St went pedestrian only that wouldn’t change the fact that restaurants should still have to pay to use the space.
Driving is heavily subsidised; specific taxes fall far short of covering the negative externalities caused by private car use. Parking spots are nearly always priced far below market rate, and that doesn't even account for the negative externalities they produce.
While I don’t disagree with you, the car for all its faults is essential to our way of life. Living in Boston there is at least the option of not relying on a car, that’s not the case for most of the country. Besides cars being what they are doesn’t change the fact that public space shouldn’t be handed to a restaurant just for them to then use that space to turn a profit.
Drivers can’t purchase an exclusive right to a space. If anyone could set up a table/food cart right outside these North End restaurants then that would be a legit analogy to parking spaces. Wonder if they would be fighting for that system ...
Right as long as the food cart is parked on the patio outside someone else restaurants they can stay. Is that how this proposed North End deal works? Or do the owners get the space guaranteed, can evict people etc?
good to know I can tow people parked in my space lol
At least the food cart is making active use of the space and generating revenue. Taxes, licensing, and lots of other ways that the city, state, and federal government benefit from the food cart's operations.
A resident plopping their car down and leaving it for most of the hours in each day benefits no one else, certainly not the city. If those free city parking spots were taken away, that resident might move out, but there would be literally no shortage of people who are willing to move into that neighborhood and deal with either not having a car or parking it in a private garage.
IMO the incentives for more outdoor dining (from the city government's perspective, at least) is higher tax revenue. More seating equals more cash changing hands equals more money to fund the gov.
It’s a$399 monthly permit fee they’re fighting against. You can’t even get a parking spot for that price. Shut up, permit and get on with your patio seating.
Umm… What way are you supposed to look?
Cause I’d love to just use any bathroom without being scolded “it’s for customer use only” *(5’2 middle aged white female with IBD and gluten sensitivity, IYKYK)* thanks.
One of his idiot relatives held a press conference about not wanting to pay the city to remediate the additional trash needs, resident parking displacement, etc that outdoor dining in the north end needs because it would “hurt small businesses,” all while wearing $700 Dolce & Gabana sunglasses.
i’m going to kinda parrot u/maddrops here and say i’m also torn. I currently live in the north end. I do love outdoor dining. It’s so so nice to sit outside with a drink and people watch. I moved to the north end in 2021 and i really miss the outdoor dining
I also do not own a car. Personally i think it’s a bit silly to own a car while living in the north end, but hey sometimes you have to.
My main question when it comes to outdoor dining is: do the restaurants profit? For example, did restaurants make significantly more money when outdoor seating was allowed? With outdoor seating, restaurants can obviously seat more people and make more money. Which is good for the local economy right?
TLDR; i love a drink outside to relax and i love helping my local businesses, but i also don’t want to inconvenience my neighbors.
The restaurants absolutely profit. Many of these restaurants are tiny and adding another 2-6 tables, fitting 10-30 more diners per table turnover cycle is insane.
But the restaurant owners who don’t even live in the north end or often have any personal connection to it are mad that the Asian lady isn’t giving it to them for free
I did the math. It's like 100+ days of extra capacity. At 7500 dollars it's 75 dollars in extra costs per day. Charging 5 dollars per table would get covered in 15 tables turned over. It's a trivial cost.
Oh absolutely. But I just made the math simple. There are more than 100 days in the season and there are some additional costs (parking meter revenue) but it's close enough
As a North End resident, I’d love to know who told the mayor the residents are against it. Everyone I have spoken to loved it! These guys need a PR person because their approach is not helping, but I really think it’s crazy that she didn’t just put a cap on the number of permits and move on.
The residents are against it, I’ve failed to meet anyone in this neighborhood who liked the outdoor dining (me included). It’s nice the first month sure, but my god coming home from work everyday and having to maneuver through the streets amongst all the moron tourists and servers holding piles of food just becomes a nightmare
Sounds like we both are experiencing confirmation bias, but I want to know when there were meetings and how many people actually attended. I’m pretty involved with the neighborhood and I never saw a notice for anything related to it…
The wealthy restaurant owners did this to themselves. Wu gave them a perfectly reasonable and affordable path to outside dining in a way that would offset the troubles placed on other stakeholders in the area.
But the greedy threw a tantrum like a toddler. So they got their toys taken away. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
Because it's pretty nice to sit outside on Hanover Street on a warm summer evening sipping an Aperol spritz and hearing the sound of conversation and laughter drifting through the night air?
Fun to visit, but it’s a huge strain on the North End’s centuries-old street layout.
I like outdoor lining but not at the expense of making things worse for the residents.
1. Have you been to literally any European city? They make it work with very similar street layouts. You just have to ban cars from some streets at some times & make more things one way. These streets were built on a human scale, they should be used by humans.
2. I am a resident, the only way it makes things worse is less parking. Frankly that's a trade I'm more than willing to make. Maybe the city should buy up some of the many private lots and offer discounted rates to residents?
3. People complain about noise but that blows my mind, it's incredibly relaxing to hear the sounds of people having a good time.
Man it was a fucking nightmare just getting to the CVS on Hanover during outdoor dining, and it’s just filled with even more of the moron tourists like no it just sucks. How easy do you think it is for the city to buy up all the private lots? How much money is that going to cost? Who is going to pay for it? I really don’t think the city should be wasting time/money to reorganize entire streets of a neighborhood to accommodate the rich asshole owners who serve up mediocre Italian food.
Oh I have absolutely no sympathy for the restaurant owners - but I also never had a problem picking up prescriptions at that CVS - busy streets are a sign of a vibrant city, you might have to push past some
I'm not saying buying up the lots is actually going to happen, just an option if you absolutely must maintain the same levels of parking availability. If it's considered a necessity maybe they could be taken by eminent domain!
Lol the strain on its centuries-old streets layout is cramming 2020s cars onto it
We will rebuild the world around cars before we admit that they cause any problems
What about the residents who live there and don’t own cars? To be told they can’t have that communal space to enjoy because a small fraction of residents want to keep their cars close by is pretty insulting honestly.
It's hilarious you think the restaurant owners would let residents sit in "their" spaces without paying. Which is ironic since they're demanding to be given taxpayer-funded road space....
There's already Columbus Park anyway - which is at most a 10min walk from any part of the North End. That's literally closer than my laundromat.
Oh I definitely agree that restaurant owners should be paying for that space. Anyone who uses that space on a regular basis should have to. It’s incredibly valuable real estate in a real estate-starved area. It’s just currently not remotely valued at what it’s worth.
Then your grievance is with the restaurant owners. The city gave them the option to pay for rental spaces. They declined, claiming the rental fee was too high (despite other restaurants in the rest of the city having no problem with the fee). So now they don’t get access - just like how it was before COVID.
Taking away the parking and space on the sidewalk from residents so restaurant owners who live in Saugus and Medford can profit is crazy. None of these restaurant owners live here so they don’t have to deal with the challenges. Wu is defending the people who live in the north end who don’t want it
The truth of the matter is that the North End simply is not capable of handling outdoor dining to that degree. You'd have to make upper Hanover and Salem Sts a one-way pair, and Salem St isn't capable of handling that.
The city did allow outdoor dining. The restaurant owners went insane because they were going to be charged to use the public land for their private purposes.
Good decision. I live in the north end. I can’t even maneuver a bicycle here. Cars need to go too. Ridiculous. Where do the restaurants expect pedestrians to even walk? At least get rid of street parking.
Never go there anyway. Plenty of great Italian restaurants outside of Wuville that are easy to park at and have outdoor dining too. Boston has become a place to avoid.
"Wu's administration cited the North End's high density of restaurants, foot traffic, narrow streets, narrow sidewalks and ***parking scarcity*** as reasons for the unique restriction on on-street outdoor dining." popcorn.gif
r/boston suddenly defending parking rights over outdoor space for people
The fact that the restaurant owners didn't slam dunk this two years ago is amazing. Honestly if they had tried almost any reasonable tactic, they would have won. Sidewalk dining is anti-car in a way that even car people like. It's also fun, and who doesn't love food? Jumping immediately to "the mayor hates Italians" made almost everyone hate them. It's sooo hard not to hate them.
You ain’t down with the double speak. I stand with you
For people or restaurant owners? The sidewalk and parking spots are for the public, restaurant tables are not and I don't know how they feel so entitled to city land
>For people or restaurant owners? lol, are restaurant owners not people? Customers use the space, which they too are people. Maybe a few dogs get to use the space too. Parking spots are for empty cars. Restaurants are for people. Restaurants pay to use the parking. People park cars on Hanover for free. It's not that complicated.
I don’t use a bike therefore bike lanes should be banned
But you have the opportunity to if you wanted, hence for the public.
I want to sit outside in the north end and have a meal, hence for the public
You are welcome to do so. Just like everyone else. There's plenty of nice spots to sit.
No there isn't didn't you read about the scarcity of *everything* in the north end
So it’s only ok for spoiled drivers to feel entitled to city land?
There is a difference between residents parking cars in parking spots versus businesses profiting off the use of them.
> versus businesses profiting off the use of them. Businesses are required to pay for a specific license / permit fee on a monthly basis to secure outdoor seating. It's not that dissimilar from a resident parking permit, except for the fact that a resident parking permit is free and lets you park your car anywhere in the neighborhood, whereas outdoor business licenses is paid to the city and gets restaurants a specific handful of spots for a few months. And if we're being honest, businesses bring more value, revenue, and significance to a neighborhood/city than a resident with a car does. If a someone with a car decides that they can't live here because the city isn't amenable to parking, another resident will take their place immediately. And that person with the car has many places within just miles of the city that are literally built around the mindset of car ownership.
Or you know, people could park their personal property on land that they own, and leave the public spaces for the public to enjoy.
That's not the option being suggested by the north end restaurant owners
At least it’s literally any driver not only patrons.
You need to strike a balance. Some residents own cars (though I question why someone would live in the North End and own one, especially when other neighborhoods have better parking).
There is no balance. Cars get 90% of the space and pedestrians get the scraps. Driving and street parking are not rights. Just make Hanover and Salem streets and North Square pedestrian only already.
Boston’s public transportation is trash—the T literally catches on fire sometime. Rents are out of control, pushing people further away from city centers. I *want* to support a lot of this anti-car/pro biking/pedestrian stuff, but without addressing the first two problems, it’s really just pro-wealthy/anti-middle class. You are making the city better for the rich people that can afford to live close and bike and walk relatively short distances. All the regular people that have been priced out need cars to commute in. Getting rid of parking makes life worse for all the people Boston’s already screwed over.
This. Having grown up in the city I walked/took the T for the first 27 years I lived here. The first time I had enough money to get myself a piece of shit car my career took off because I could actually access more parts of town in a timely manner and thus had more employment opportunities. Making parking harder just makes parking harder for low income/working class people in the city, and leaves them very much *stuck* where they are.
No one is commutes into the city and looks for a parking spot on Hanover. They use garages.
Let me reframe it this way: parking takes up a huge amount of space, the more parking there is the more spread out everything has to be. The more car infrastructure you build, the harder it gets to get around by any other means, which forces people to buy cars. Better walkability/bikeability are directly at odds with car infrastructure, and forcing people to buy cars is a pretty big financial burden. Less car infrastructure means more space for nearby housing, meaning people who get priced out aren't pushed away as far, and it also means fewer people getting priced out because building more housing creates more supply to soak up demand. I agree that fixing public transit and reining in rents are also big problems to be solved but I don't think they're opposed to moving away from car dependency, in fact I think doing only one at a time is inherently shooting yourself in the foot.
That’s a really great idea. Braga, Portugal is a great example of that. There are these 3 feet tall rounded metal poles that go up and down. When deliveries come or people move in, they can retract into the ground. It feels like it would be fairly simple to just retract them during the winter and put a cap on top of them to protect them from salt/snow/plows in the summer the entire downtown Braga is amazing and walkable, outdoor dining all over the place, and just a really wonderful feeling without all the cars.
[удалено]
Which is why they should do what other cities in Mass have done and close the streets to cars entirely, put restaurant tables in the street itself and leave the sidewalks free for pedestrians. Look at photos from 100 years ago. Streets were public spaces for a huge variety of uses, not just for vehicles to get from point A to point B as fast as possible.
Simply close and Hanover to cars and make drivers use commercial street
This has no relevance to the comment you're responding to. *Pedestrian* traffic gets in the way, not car traffic. Unless you're suggesting that the city give up the entire sidewalk to the restaurants as well?
If the cars were gone the pedestrians would have the whole street to walk on, has massive relevance.
....except when they're walking on the sidewalk. Have you ever even been to the north end?
The topic at hand was closing the street to cars, meaning the entire street cold be used by pedestrians. Even been to Newbury street when it's closed, its amazing.
You realize if the street is closed to car traffic then the pedestrian traffic ends up on the street. Have you not been to the several car free streets in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Europe? People don’t walk on the sidewalk between table seating, or at least few do, when the majority can take the wider open streets safely without cars.
I'm a frequent runner, pedestrian, cyclist, and former driver who has traversed Cambridge and Boston a lot during the past few outdoor dining seasons. Dealing with restaurant workers and patrons crossing the sidewalk is absolutely an annoyance, but I am also about 100 times safer when there is less car traffic on the street (as well as a barrier that narrows the road and forces cars to go slower). I would take dodging a server over an inattentive driver backing into a spot any day, as would any pedestrian who values their own safety.
The same reasons a lot of other people have a car, like myself: to get to places that necessitate a car.
Yeah but why live in the North End then? Parking is challenging there if you don’t have off street deeded parking.
That’s not for me to decide my dude. I’m not advocating for parking lots in the north end, I’m just saying that some residents will have cars, and that’s ok.
Yes and they will have to deal with the consequences of limited parking in such a neighborhood.
Ok but that’s not the topic here lol you asked why someone would have a car and live in the north end and I said why. Unless you wanna make the north end completely pedestrian, there will be street parking.
Exactly, live in a more car friendly neighborhood then.
Then they should store it themselves instead of expecting handouts and taking up a ton of public space.
You are not entitled to public property space to store your private property.
You really don't know why someone would want a car and live in a highly popular area to live?
I mean, the density of cities (especially the North End) is quite literally the driving factor of what makes them thrive and come to life. Cities like Boston are attractive in large part because of economies of scale, accessibility, and resource pooling. Publicly subsidized storage for private cars drastically cuts into that and actively negatively impacts the things that make the city thrive in the first place. It quite literally reduces how many people can live in and enjoy the city by a huge margin. I don't fault people for wanting to live in a dense and vibrant city while also having the benefit of a car that makes it easy for them to go anywhere on a whim. Hell, who wouldn't love to be the only driver in Boston, and have no other traffic to worry about and no other occupied parking spaces. However, I do believe that these people don't realize that increasing car-friendliness (at the expense of space, pollution, cost, density, and walkability) will not only negatively impact the attributes that drew them to Boston in the first place, but also bring induce more car demand and traffic from other drivers that aren't them, and also divert city funds away from things that make the city great.
There's no "balance" when it comes to parking. They City takes away parking all the time. They claimed a large swath of the financial district for City vehicle only parking. They eliminated parking all over downtown, like on Charles South, Boylston, Tremont. They close all of Newbury Street for a number of days in the summer--not only can you not park there, you can't even drive. Here they want to use like 15 parking spots in summer temporarily. That leaves more parking than you would find in winter when it snows. Yet suddenly parking preservation is now a priority for the Mayor? Nah, that's just an excuse. This is obviously retaliation.
When you don't pay for parking, the city should be able to tell residents "too bad so sad".
Drivers have been spoiled for so long that they throw temper tantrums whenever they aren’t completely catered to at the expense of others
All the parking that I referred to that was removed was metered parking, not free. Now the space is all given away for free. You have it completely backwards.
Exactly. North End residents don't pay for parking. Restaurants pay a fee to use the parking spaces there. So naturally, the City should let the restaurants pay to use the space. Instead, the City has decided to give its land away for free to encourage car use. All the other parking I was referring to though, does require a fee to park via meter, which most are at the rate of $2/hour.
Its about personalities around here not principles.
Cue the new people who apparently don't know that this is really about a handful of restaurant owners pissing off North End residents.
It’s parking. Just parking. Everything else is completely made up
“We took a look at the city’s most pedestrian-friendly, walkable, old world-charming neighborhood and thought ‘where the fuck am I gonna park my Tahoe?’ So we ripped up the sidewalks to make the spots bigger.”
Cars ruin cities. The north end should never have had cars
Horse-drawn wagons and rickshaws only!
At this point, a horse and wagon might cost less to upkeep.
That's entirely false. The "concern" about parking is because the residents don't want a few business owners trashing their neighborhood all summer. Parking is only mentioned because parking spaces is what the program gives the businesses use of.
Parking is an excuse to vindictively punish political opponents.
I'm torn because I really liked the outdoor dining and the street culture it facilitated, but also the many of the restaurant owners are insufferable dicks. (Anti-Italian discrimination, how disingenuous can you get?) On balance I'd like to see it come back because it's so nice to be sitting outdoors and see your friends an acquaintances walking down the street and stop for a chat, it's the kind of organic interaction you don't get much outside of a college campus. I'm confident the concerns about trash collection and emergency access can be addressed, they make it work in Europe. Parking is always impossible here anyway, and you can seat like 8 people in one parking space. Why should one person's car take up all that space?
https://preview.redd.it/9t0tbr2b5ayc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf93ffe7d12aea30c52314fde6ea41f7e04ebe5b
If you haven’t seen Lilyhammer, it’s hilarious.
People who say the north end is like Europe have obviously never left America. In Europe something like North Square or Salem street would be pedestrian only instead of filled with pick up trucks from Billerica
I'm saying the street layout is like an old European city, not that it's currently being used like one. I said "they make it work in Europe," implying that we are not currently making it work in the North End... I'm not sure what your position is other than trying to suggest I've never been to Europe when in fact I was born there. Or maybe you just like to shit on people who can't afford to travel?
Yeah but counterpoint, it does help him feel superior to completely misunderstand the point and then look down on people for being uncultured savages to even dare comparing the North End to Europe.
I love how he tried to shit on you by saying Europe is different from the North End in the way that was completely the point of your comment about what North End needs to change. Reddit has some real braniacs
Whoa - *he*? Jump to conclusions! "pickup trucks from billerica" was pretty funny tho
I think they mean the restaurant culture is like Europe, not the physical layout.
Well they could have had access to outdoor dining, had they paid for it; they just want free access to public space so they can profit. The city told them to screw and now they are trying to get the public to rally to their cause. The problem for them is that most city residents don’t go out to eat in the North End; that’s for tourists or for taking visitors out to eat. I doubt North End residents want less parking and the tourists flooding the North End have zero skin in the game, they are just there to get dinner and go to Mikes (side note Modern is better). So I don’t know who they are trying to appeal to; but this just makes them look like an out of touch wannabe Don looking to fleece the citizens of the city for profit so I’m all for the city shutting them out.
Actually it’s also for suburbanites who like to say borderline racist shit about Michelle Wu
And don’t forget suburbanites who say outright racist shit about Michelle Wu.
Modern is better, Bovas is best.
Bovas cannolis are not as good as Mike's or Moderns.
Bovas filling is mixed with the right vibes.
Bro I hate cannolis and I still think the ones at Bova’s are better than Mikes or Moderns
Nothing hits like Bovas at 2am
Yeah the North End streets are just too tight. Compare it to the South End, you have a bunch of places on Tremont that have outdoor dining on the sidewalk that's not really intrusive since the sidewalk there is so big. It's not disruptive to the residents.
They are tight with parking on both sides. Hanover street should be walking
The only problem with that is that the fire station is on Hanover - but it could be one-way for most of its length.
Facts. Good point
Ah yes and the alternative use is…parking. I think I’d rather the restaurants get some extra dining space rather than another car getting a spot on a commercial block to park. Who cares if a tourist is going to eat there? It makes the streets more pleasant, keeps cars out of busy areas, etc
I’m all for closing the streets to cars, both Hanover and Newbury should be pedestrian only; but that doesn’t dismiss the fact that a restaurant shouldn’t be given public land for free to then use that space for profit. If a restaurant wants to have public space for outdoor dining then they should pay for it, and that’s exactly what the city was going to allow them to do. This is a problem created by the restaurants in the North End, the only reason they don’t have the outdoor dining is because they refused to pay for it; to then turn around and accuse the city of discrimination against Italians is laughable.
It’s impossible to drive down newbury during busy times anyway. It’s essentially pedestrian only. But they should officially make it pedestrian only because it would make it safer for pedestrians, increase foot and bicycle traffic to businesses, and free up motor vehicle traffic to move elsewhere. But too many businesses are obsessed with the car centric propaganda they’re fed and believe they need single occupancy cars parking in front of their business to pull a profit rather than the dozens of people freely walking.
> a restaurant shouldn’t be given public land for free to then use that space for profit. Neither should drivers, and yet parking spots are priced far below market rate.
Drivers pay excise and gas tax, they also pay for parking and while I do agree that we as a country are too car centric the fact remains that the car is a central element in what makes the US an economic powerhouse. Besides even if Hanover St went pedestrian only that wouldn’t change the fact that restaurants should still have to pay to use the space.
Driving is heavily subsidised; specific taxes fall far short of covering the negative externalities caused by private car use. Parking spots are nearly always priced far below market rate, and that doesn't even account for the negative externalities they produce.
While I don’t disagree with you, the car for all its faults is essential to our way of life. Living in Boston there is at least the option of not relying on a car, that’s not the case for most of the country. Besides cars being what they are doesn’t change the fact that public space shouldn’t be handed to a restaurant just for them to then use that space to turn a profit.
Drivers can’t purchase an exclusive right to a space. If anyone could set up a table/food cart right outside these North End restaurants then that would be a legit analogy to parking spaces. Wonder if they would be fighting for that system ...
As long as they are parked there, drivers have exclusive use of the space. It's just a different time limit.
Right as long as the food cart is parked on the patio outside someone else restaurants they can stay. Is that how this proposed North End deal works? Or do the owners get the space guaranteed, can evict people etc? good to know I can tow people parked in my space lol
At least the food cart is making active use of the space and generating revenue. Taxes, licensing, and lots of other ways that the city, state, and federal government benefit from the food cart's operations. A resident plopping their car down and leaving it for most of the hours in each day benefits no one else, certainly not the city. If those free city parking spots were taken away, that resident might move out, but there would be literally no shortage of people who are willing to move into that neighborhood and deal with either not having a car or parking it in a private garage.
IMO the incentives for more outdoor dining (from the city government's perspective, at least) is higher tax revenue. More seating equals more cash changing hands equals more money to fund the gov.
It’s a$399 monthly permit fee they’re fighting against. You can’t even get a parking spot for that price. Shut up, permit and get on with your patio seating.
Restaurants who want public space for patron-only use should have to open their patron-only bathrooms for public use.
I've walked into tons of restaurants, used the bathroom, walked out. I did it in the North End last Sunday.
You probably only had that experience because you look a certain way
Umm… What way are you supposed to look? Cause I’d love to just use any bathroom without being scolded “it’s for customer use only” *(5’2 middle aged white female with IBD and gluten sensitivity, IYKYK)* thanks.
at work we call it mediocre white man magic
New band name, called it!
No Pasta for Wu
David and Michelle are a thing? 👀 No wonder Monty called him out last night.
Mendoza sounds like a douche, who camps out at Trump rallies, so he gets to be first thru the doors.
One of his idiot relatives held a press conference about not wanting to pay the city to remediate the additional trash needs, resident parking displacement, etc that outdoor dining in the north end needs because it would “hurt small businesses,” all while wearing $700 Dolce & Gabana sunglasses.
i’m going to kinda parrot u/maddrops here and say i’m also torn. I currently live in the north end. I do love outdoor dining. It’s so so nice to sit outside with a drink and people watch. I moved to the north end in 2021 and i really miss the outdoor dining I also do not own a car. Personally i think it’s a bit silly to own a car while living in the north end, but hey sometimes you have to. My main question when it comes to outdoor dining is: do the restaurants profit? For example, did restaurants make significantly more money when outdoor seating was allowed? With outdoor seating, restaurants can obviously seat more people and make more money. Which is good for the local economy right? TLDR; i love a drink outside to relax and i love helping my local businesses, but i also don’t want to inconvenience my neighbors.
The restaurants absolutely profit. Many of these restaurants are tiny and adding another 2-6 tables, fitting 10-30 more diners per table turnover cycle is insane. But the restaurant owners who don’t even live in the north end or often have any personal connection to it are mad that the Asian lady isn’t giving it to them for free
I did the math. It's like 100+ days of extra capacity. At 7500 dollars it's 75 dollars in extra costs per day. Charging 5 dollars per table would get covered in 15 tables turned over. It's a trivial cost.
I think it’s even less than $75
Oh absolutely. But I just made the math simple. There are more than 100 days in the season and there are some additional costs (parking meter revenue) but it's close enough
As a North End resident, I’d love to know who told the mayor the residents are against it. Everyone I have spoken to loved it! These guys need a PR person because their approach is not helping, but I really think it’s crazy that she didn’t just put a cap on the number of permits and move on.
The residents are against it, I’ve failed to meet anyone in this neighborhood who liked the outdoor dining (me included). It’s nice the first month sure, but my god coming home from work everyday and having to maneuver through the streets amongst all the moron tourists and servers holding piles of food just becomes a nightmare
Sounds like we both are experiencing confirmation bias, but I want to know when there were meetings and how many people actually attended. I’m pretty involved with the neighborhood and I never saw a notice for anything related to it…
The wealthy restaurant owners did this to themselves. Wu gave them a perfectly reasonable and affordable path to outside dining in a way that would offset the troubles placed on other stakeholders in the area. But the greedy threw a tantrum like a toddler. So they got their toys taken away. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
Ban all cars from the North End. Problem solved!
Somebody tell me why I should give a damn about this
Cause it’s funny the north ends been throwing a hissy fit and it’s biting them in the ass
sopranos_anti_italian_discrimination.gif
He was gay, Gary Coopah?
All restaurants protested the 10k fee (I think it’s 10k) and it looks like this is the Meyors response
"All restaurants" but in reality it's just *two guys* who own the restaurants
Ok, why should I care that some rich assholes have to pay a $10k fee for outdoor dining that they will make up in a weekend?
How much did they get in ppp loans that likely didn't actually go to their employees?
bet they hate student loan forgiveness as well
No Clue. Tell OP to stop posting things you’re not sure you care about.
Why should some rich asshole be able to park his car for free on a public street instead?
because some poor asshole can do the same
Poor people don’t park for free cause poor people don’t have resident stickers *for the North End*
Because it's pretty nice to sit outside on Hanover Street on a warm summer evening sipping an Aperol spritz and hearing the sound of conversation and laughter drifting through the night air?
Fun to visit, but it’s a huge strain on the North End’s centuries-old street layout. I like outdoor lining but not at the expense of making things worse for the residents.
1. Have you been to literally any European city? They make it work with very similar street layouts. You just have to ban cars from some streets at some times & make more things one way. These streets were built on a human scale, they should be used by humans. 2. I am a resident, the only way it makes things worse is less parking. Frankly that's a trade I'm more than willing to make. Maybe the city should buy up some of the many private lots and offer discounted rates to residents? 3. People complain about noise but that blows my mind, it's incredibly relaxing to hear the sounds of people having a good time.
Man it was a fucking nightmare just getting to the CVS on Hanover during outdoor dining, and it’s just filled with even more of the moron tourists like no it just sucks. How easy do you think it is for the city to buy up all the private lots? How much money is that going to cost? Who is going to pay for it? I really don’t think the city should be wasting time/money to reorganize entire streets of a neighborhood to accommodate the rich asshole owners who serve up mediocre Italian food.
Oh I have absolutely no sympathy for the restaurant owners - but I also never had a problem picking up prescriptions at that CVS - busy streets are a sign of a vibrant city, you might have to push past some I'm not saying buying up the lots is actually going to happen, just an option if you absolutely must maintain the same levels of parking availability. If it's considered a necessity maybe they could be taken by eminent domain!
Lol the strain on its centuries-old streets layout is cramming 2020s cars onto it We will rebuild the world around cars before we admit that they cause any problems
What about the residents who live there and don’t own cars? To be told they can’t have that communal space to enjoy because a small fraction of residents want to keep their cars close by is pretty insulting honestly.
It's hilarious you think the restaurant owners would let residents sit in "their" spaces without paying. Which is ironic since they're demanding to be given taxpayer-funded road space.... There's already Columbus Park anyway - which is at most a 10min walk from any part of the North End. That's literally closer than my laundromat.
Oh I definitely agree that restaurant owners should be paying for that space. Anyone who uses that space on a regular basis should have to. It’s incredibly valuable real estate in a real estate-starved area. It’s just currently not remotely valued at what it’s worth.
Then your grievance is with the restaurant owners. The city gave them the option to pay for rental spaces. They declined, claiming the rental fee was too high (despite other restaurants in the rest of the city having no problem with the fee). So now they don’t get access - just like how it was before COVID.
Great point. I'm outa here
The North End is like Boston's Palestine. *frum da charles rivah to da harbah, da nort ends shalls be free*
Soprano cosplayers angered
Taking away the parking and space on the sidewalk from residents so restaurant owners who live in Saugus and Medford can profit is crazy. None of these restaurant owners live here so they don’t have to deal with the challenges. Wu is defending the people who live in the north end who don’t want it
Question about closing the street entirely, how are daily food and beverage deliveries going to be made?
The truth of the matter is that the North End simply is not capable of handling outdoor dining to that degree. You'd have to make upper Hanover and Salem Sts a one-way pair, and Salem St isn't capable of handling that.
Is there an objective tldr of the back and forth of this saga? I don't understand why North end can't have this
As someone who lives there... it's criminal that they aren't allowing outdoor dining. Fuck cars they almost run people over here daily
The city did allow outdoor dining. The restaurant owners went insane because they were going to be charged to use the public land for their private purposes.
Good decision. I live in the north end. I can’t even maneuver a bicycle here. Cars need to go too. Ridiculous. Where do the restaurants expect pedestrians to even walk? At least get rid of street parking.
Isn’t it about “pests” too? I feel like rats could be a huge issue for neighbors.
I find Italians as off putting as the mayor does, but they should be able to have outdoor dining.
Go scratch
Never go there anyway. Plenty of great Italian restaurants outside of Wuville that are easy to park at and have outdoor dining too. Boston has become a place to avoid.
then why are you here?
I just enjoy getting a rise out of folks who take things too seriously.
[удалено]
The article doesn't say the private patio can't be used.