Worcester Needs To Stop Being A Car Town

Why Worcester Should Embrace Public Transit

The city of Worcester currently has an unfortunate relationship with cars. Most people who live and work in the city commute by car; very few Worcester residents travel by bus, bike or on foot. If Worcester hopes to become a successful modern city, they will need to ditch their love affair with cars.

Congestion

The first argument to be made against driving through the city is that traffic in Worcester has become horrendous. This is a result of poorly designed roadways and too many drivers. There are neighborhoods throughout the city where streets can turn into carbon emitting parking lots for upwards of a half hour at a time. I have included a picture below of a particularly troublesome intersection. In this one area shown, there are about 5 - 8 traffic lights over short distances that halt traffic moving from any one point to any other point. I frequently have to drive from the bottom left corner of this picture to the top right corner. This distance is .5 miles, but will often take upwards of 10 minutes. 

Cost

Worcester offers four publicly run parking garages in downtown. The city additionally has almost endless street and off-street parking. Last year the parking infrastructure in the city ran a deficit of $476,000. Despite the fact that the garages lose money each year, they remain in operation. Worcester should close it's parking garages and build something useful instead.

Density

Now that I've bashed the city for it's failings, I want to point out a couple of areas of hope, the first of which is density. Despite it's large area, Worcester boasts a population density of about 4,600 people per square mile, which is actually quite high. Houston, TX, by comparison, has a density of only 3,500 per square mile, despite a population of over 2 million. 

The denser a city is, the more effectively it can be served by public transit. Because Worcester is dense already, it could conceivably operate a successful bus or even light rail network. Worcester is already served by a bus system, but ridership is currently quite low. In order to encourage residents to take the bus, the city has to reduce it's parking friendly rules.

The Future

Despite it's affinity for cars, Worcester is showing signs of hope in the realm of parking. In November, the city proposed changes to zoning laws which would remove minimum parking requirements for new buildings. That would mean that as new buildings went up, they would not need to provide off-street parking. This could help to further increase density and encourage people to walk or take the bus, as over time it would reduce parking.

The proposal never actually came to pass for the whole city, but it appears that it will be adopted by at least the downtown core. In a city of cars, I am starting to see some signs of hope, but there is still lots of work to be done. 

Snowstorm Parking Cones

Take Your Cones Off The Street!

Here in New England we are at the beginning of yet another winter storm. This year we have been attacked with words such as "smowmageddon," "Polar Vortex" and most recently "Bombogenesis." The fact that our media has nothing better to do than scare us into believing that each storm will bring the end of the world is annoying for sure, but what I find to be much more offensive is the fact that so many people think that it is somehow appropriate to save parking spaces for themselves and their extended families using traffic cones, chairs, or other items.

This is Illegal

Yes really. It is against the law to save yourself a parking space using an object on a public street either before, during or after a winter storm and there are actually several good reasons why. Let's take a look.

You Don't Own the Street

This is fairly simple. A public street is owned in common by everyone. This means that no individual has a greater legal right to occupy the street than any other person. Essentially this creates a first come, first serve environment. Public roads are maintained by the city you live in and this maintenance is funded through taxes, which are paid by everyone. Put simply, everyone pays for all of the roads and therefore is equally entitled to use them. 

Placing an object to reserve a space that is not being occupied by your car is an example of claiming ownership. This would be similar to someone fencing off a section of a city park to prevent others from using it and then walking away. Everyone can see that this is ridiculous. So why then do we think it is okay to do on the street?

Here is a particularly brazen act of space saving. A bag, really?

It is Inefficient

This one may not be obvious at first. It might seem that a parking space is just a parking space and and that saving a specific spot does not necessarily interfere with others. It does. Take a look at this picture for a clear example.

In this photo no cars are occupying the parking spaces, but they are all reserved by chairs. Perhaps the people who own the chairs and have "reserved" themselves a parking space are all at work. But it doesn't really matter where they are, all that matters is that they are not in the spot. 

Suppose for simplicity that these people work from 9-5 and place chairs out in the morning when they leave. Perhaps there is another person who wants to visit a friend or relative on this street at lunchtime. If there were no chairs, the person would have no trouble parking while on a lunch visit. They could then leave and the spot could be open again when the workers returned at 5. But because the chairs are preventing other cars from using the space when unoccupied by cars, it is inefficient. 

Now What?

I admit that it is frustrating to have "your" parking spot taken and have to look for or shovel a new spot. I really do understand, it has happened to me many times. But it is much worse for any given snowy city as a whole when individuals try to own public streets. This type of behavior should not be tolerated.

If you are trying to navigate a snowstorm and you happen to find that a parking space is occupied by a cone, chair or handbag, know that you have every right to move it and take the space. In fact, I urge you to do so in order to help reverse the sense of entitlement that Northern city dwellers feel during the snowy winter months.