Originally Published in the Brookline TAB April 1998
While I was shopping last week, I was accosted by Mike Kerstein, of Simon’s Shoes. He asked how I was and commented on my worn-out shoes. Changing the subject, I said I heard he had gone to the Selectman’s meeting the other night and asked him why. He told me after decades of living in Brookline, he had realized he was a “townie.” I immediately inspected his teeth. He went on to say that he went because of the controversy about parking. Apparently, The Board of Transportation, responding to citizen requests, had recently designated 51 of the 143 parking spaces in the Centre St East lot as resident-only parking. You may not have seen the signs marking these parking spots, because they are barely noticeable. One important mucky-muck has already reported getting a ticket for parking there after 8:00pm.
The merchants who knew about this change went ballistic. The rest I talked to about it were not even aware that this piece of legislature had been passed. In fact, most of them were hearing about it for the first time from me. (I made a note to get out of the house more often.) One merchant said, “From an aerial view it looks like there’s plenty of parking here. But it’s not true. Parking is a problem here, and this action simply compounds it.”
We all know the feeling of coming into a busy shopping area: You are near your destination, and you’ve entered “the parking zone.” You offer up a prayer to the Parking Gods and let your infra-red laser-beam tracking eyes take over. You survey: she’s walking slow, he’s looking at the car knowingly, KEYS OUT! Ah! The delight in a job well done—you’ve found a spot. Folks need to be able to drive to their commercial district to do chores, shop or just consume some ginko biloba without parking hassles. Why, without adequate parking, Coolidge Corner could be like Inman Square— a great place to go, if you want to suffer the misery of driving around for an hour, settling on a resident only spot, and then getting a ticket anyway.
The Centre Street East lot needs to be fixed. A simple mathematic equation reveals the logic—there are now 92 unlimited spots left in that lot available after 8pm. If you figure that The Coolidge Corner Theatre can seat 900 people at its capacity, and restaurants like The Coolidge Corner Clubhouse, The Tam, Zaftigs, Takeshima, Noble House and the others can seat more than 400 people, and that Booksmith, Jera’s, Brooks, CVS Pharmacies and Videosmith are open late —well you get the picture. Now, if two trains leave Chicago….
Fearing stigmatization from the town, few of the merchants wanted to go on the record. Fearing my breath, even fewer wanted to talk to me. The general consensus was this: the town needs to addresses the severe shortage of parking spaces immediately. Mike K told me that umpteen reports and been commissioned and that umpteen reports concluded that “more parking was needed.” He said clearly, the solution was simple: “deck the lot.” (This is lingo you will hear a lot if you wade into these parking waters. It means to build a second level above the existing parking lot.)
Even though it seems like a reasonable, easy solution, “decking the lot” is apparently a big problem. The residents want more parking (as evidenced by the long waiting list for spots), but are afraid of that more parking will bring the unspecified, unwanted “other” into town (maybe the dreaded Allstonians). They’re afraid that more parking will increase noise and traffic and generally “commercialize” the district. The merchants want more parking, and they deserve it, as far as I’m concerned. The merchants need their own spaces so they don’t have to run out and feed meters every two hours and bring down property values. They should also not use up spaces that might be used by their potential customers. Guests of our beloved Coolidge Corner need to be able to drive here and find a spot. Otherwise we will continue to lose valuable customer traffic to malls and other areas with better municipal parking, like Newton Centre or Alberquerque, New Mexico. This will lead to loss of merchants (see Stride Rites defection to the Mall) and then guess what….higher taxes.
Despite this problem, residents are reportedly apoplectic about the look of the lot—they don’t want to change a thing. They are protective of the concrete landscape as if it were designed by Frederick Ohmstead. I myself am not eager to see the whole thing broken, turned upside down for months, and replaced by a horrific concrete monstrosity. This means that the folks in charge of the Big Dig or the Pierce School shouldn’t be anywhere near this project. I asked Mike K if he know to avoid the resultant parking edifice eyesore. He replied, “What’s to know? You throw up some flower pots—it’s gorgeous.”
As we continued to talk about the dilemma, Mike took my hand, grabbed his umbrella in the other, and led me outside through the Coolidge alley, to the edge of the sidewalk that faces the parking lot. He stood me straight and pointed to the whole thing. “They’re going to change this?” he asked in a mocking tone.
I told him that he didn’t need to be so dramatic, that I was writing a humor piece. “You sure are.” He replied, laughing.
He turned around and left me. I went back to my car. It had a ticket.