Traffic and Parking Committee

Hello, everyone. Thanks for your patience. We're having some trouble with clerk coverage tonight. We apologize. You had to wait for almost 15 minutes in the waiting room. Yes, so we do have a clerk and we will get started. So my name is Neema Sait, she her pronouns, I'm the World 5 City Councilor and your Traffic and Parking Chair. I would like to call to order today's Traffic and Parking Committee meeting of the Somerville City Council. First I will read the legal notice that allows us to have this meeting on Zoom. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2023, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio-video recording transcript.

or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website on local cable access government channels. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish a quorum?

This is roll call. Councilor Mbah?

Present.

Councilor Wheeler?

Here.

Councilor Sait? Here. With all three Councilors present, we have quorum.

And then just very quickly, let's begin with approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. On the minutes, any discussions? Seeing none, clerk, could you please call the roll for the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting? Or if it's easier, we can lay that on the table too.

I'm just getting in on my other laptop, apologies everyone, if we could just wait till the end of the meeting, thank you. Sure, yeah, we'll wait until the end of the meeting.

And we're just waiting for the agenda... But I can read the items. We're gonna take the first three items together. I will read the items while we wait for the agenda to be shown on screen. Order ID 26-0123 sent for discussion by Councilor Ewen-Campen and Councilor Scott that the Director of Mobility update this Council on the intersection improvements at Webster Ave and Prospect Street. We also have a public communication ID number 26-0634 sent for discussion. 64 residents submitting comments. Parking on O. Bolton and Prospect Streets.

Order ID number 26-0373 referred to a recommendation by Councilor Wheeler that this Council review construction-related parking in the area of Oak Street and Bolton Street. So again, we're going to take up all these items together. And just before we... Okay, I see the agenda. on the screen now. Thank you, Clerk. I would like, or Councilor Wheeler, Would you like to sponsor someone before we get started? We have received a letter. Yeah.

Thank you. Yes, I would like to sponsor Serena Bodner to address this committee.

I see Serena as an attendee. Clerk, could you...

If you could raise your hand, I'll give you permission to talk.

Serena? Has her hand raised?

You should be allowed to speak.

Serena, you're unmuted.

Great. You can hear me okay? Yes. Excellent. Okay, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. My name is Serena Bodner. I live at 31 Bolton Street with my husband. We've lived in our home for 13 years. and so I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our concerns in our neighborhood I know that you read our letter so I'm not going to repeat every point that we made but I did want to take this opportunity to highlight a few things We recognize that the city tickets regularly, but that's not effective enough to address the ongoing problems that we're having in our neighborhood because it's not changing anything. I personally report contractors blocking hydrants and fire lanes to 311 pretty much every single day. And I know that other people in my neighborhood do as well. and I know that those contractors occasionally get ticketed when they get caught but this is a reactive response and it's not solving our problem.

One of my neighbors actually did the math and contractors that pay $35 a month for a parking pass plus say they receive four tickets in a month at $50 for street cleaning or for illegal parking are essentially paying $235 a month And so they get street parking for less than $10 a day. So breaking the law with illegal parking is just a budgeted project cost for them. And it's a really good deal for them at that, to be honest. So ticketing is not a disincentive for these contractors to park illegally. But the negative impact and the extra 40 plus vehicles on our three streets is significant to us. Street cleaning last year was impacted so frequently that Bolton Street actually didn't even receive its last street cleaning of the year because there were too many cars parked there. and there was a very serious fire about three blocks from our neighborhood recently.

I am always so concerned about the fire truck and emergency vehicle response on our narrow streets. and the illegal the constant illegal parking in the fire lanes puts our entire neighborhood at risk we should not be expected to assume the risk of our health and our safety for the convenience and the profit of a contractor just trying to find a place to park This morning alone, there were actually two deliveries for two different projects on opposite sides of the street on Prospect Street about 930 in the morning. Cars were forced to go down to a single lane in an S curve to get down the block. Traffic was backed up past Cambridge Street, past the bridge in Union, and couldn't even take a turn onto Prospect to get out of our neighborhood. There was no traffic detail to help navigate this. It was a total mess this morning. Prominent builders on the corner of Houghton and Prospect were shutting down Houghton Street for days at a time last summer, and they were faking street closure permits. JT Scott can attest that I reported it every single time.

but we shouldn't have to continue to face this kind of disruption that's been going on in our neighborhood for years we received a letter from the mayor's office after we sent our letter in saying that they do review material delivery plans so Either the plans that they're approving are not being evaluated for the real impact to the people that live in this neighborhood or the contractors are not following their plans. Either way, not working. So I would like to end by saying that we understand that the city is working within the structure of the systems that they have available. But when there are six large construction projects within a quarter mile on these tiny streets and there's no end to construction in sight, The system isn't working. The system wasn't designated. It wasn't designed to handle this. And I think it says something about the negative impact when 64 of our neighbors are coming together to address the city with our concerns. the tickets need to be more of a disincentive construction parking passes need to be pulled people with building permits need to be fined the fines need to be significant enough to deter the bad behavior

and the builders profiting off the disruption and the disruption of the harmony to our neighborhood where we live need to be held to a higher standard. We know that construction is not going to stop, but we need to find a better way to make this work for everybody. So thank you. I appreciate your time and I'm happy to answer any questions you have now or in the future.

Thank you, Serena, Councilor Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much to Serena and the other people who wrote in. Just to attempt to summarize some of what I've heard from people who've reached out. and from this really well thought out letter that this group submitted with public comment.

It sounds like... Willer, can I ask the clerk if it's possible to have the letter on the screen? While you're speaking. Thank you.

Just give me a few minutes. I'll have it up there.

Thank you. Thank you, Clark. Just to summarize some of the points, not all the points. There's a lot here, but... One of the things that I understand is inconvenient on a daily basis is just how many contractors may be sometimes legally parking. And that's one kind of level of issue. and then there's how often contractors are illegally parking. So it sounds like there's sort of two different source issues here and maybe some more. It sounds like driveways are sometimes being blocked, sidewalk access, crosswalk access is sometimes being blocked, fire lanes are sometimes being blocked. and bikes and pedestrians, including ways that children need to cross the street to get to school are sometimes being blocked with dangerous results.

Turning cars are running into blocked sight lines as well, and there are no parking and no stopping zones, and that's sometimes being ignored. So, you know, just to clarify, this is... both you know what i'm hearing is this is both an inconvenience of you know being hard to find parking but it's also a safety issue uh and you know i i know uh this is something that's not what Any of us on the city side were sort of designing or intending to happen. And I also know that there are limits on the sort of levers that we can pull. But I am hearing an ask for a shift. from sort of reactive enforcement to thinking about these problems maybe more proactively. and some of that could involve some more daily monitoring, towing and enforcement without relying on residents calling in complaints.

and then also taking a look at how we're approaching our parking permits in terms of price, in terms of how many we provide, in terms of their windows of time. I'm new to this and I'll be the first to admit there's a lot that I don't know. And I know there's lots of things where mass general law may constrain what we can do. So I want to appreciate all of that. I know that We and the traffic and parking department are working with what we have, but I want to make sure that we're taking these questions and these suggestions of possible directions for solutions seriously.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Wheeler, for summarizing that. Again, we have the letter on the screen, and this was also shared by the full council. Thank you, Serena, to all the 62 neighbors who put this together. This was also shared with Mobility Engineer in the Parking Department. They had a chance to review it. So first they would like to recognize Councilor Mbah and then we will hear from...

Thank you, Chair Said. Yeah, I think you've harmonized my thoughts. I just wanted to give a chance to To mobility and the administration to respond because we know exactly what this letter is stipulating. They enumerated the problem. They have even provided what suggestions they need. And so I want to be grateful to Serena for also just that high level because I'm glad that you did not repeat everything that was in your letter because we... Thank you. Thank you, Carson.

Bob? Director Rawson or Director Renfrew who would like to go first. Again, you all received the letter 10 days or two weeks ago. So yeah, I think it would be helpful to just give us a sense of like Yeah, like what is going on here? And then we'll discuss one issue at a time and how it can be addressed. Hi, Councilor.

I'm happy to go first. Suzanne, Director of Parking. So first, I'd like to say that it's not a proactive approach down there. We are down there every day. We have an open complaint in this area. We have been issuing lots and lots of tickets down there. In fact, I did a spreadsheet of how many tickets we've been issuing over the years, and I'm happy to share that with the council at some point if they're interested. We are doing a lot of ticketing for permit parking, street cleaning, restricted zones, and also using, some folks do have guest cars, like just regular people that live in the area. As far as permits go, we did last year stop giving any various plate permits to Prospect Street. So any contractors that came in

and declared that they were on Prospect Street or working with that project, they had to have plate-specific permits so that they couldn't be passing permits around to other contractors. So I do have, I know that in 2022 to 2023 We issued 485 permits in that area. 2024 to 2020, 2023 to 2024, 294. 2024 to 2025, 91. 2024 to 2020 I mean 2025 to 2026 so far this year 67 now I did these all from April to April for the permit so that we'd have a consistent number. That's just for Prospect Street. On Bolton Street, so far this year, we've only issued four. On Oak Street, 14. and on Holton Street 7. Permits.

So as far as not giving, we're trying not to give any various permits to folks. Unfortunately, though, we do have this permit process that allows, you know, people to get contractor permits because At the same time, we're in the business of the city to try to help out both businesses and residents. Of course, we don't want everybody parking on the street, and I totally understand. I understand all of the residents frustration. I think it's awful. But at the same time we do have to offer permits to these contractors. They can't just come into the city and get ticketed day after day after day. I'm open to suggestions. We are down there ticketing. And as the resident said, sometimes it does... I don't know, maybe they're really rich people and they can afford all these tickets, but I can't think of much more that we could actually be doing. But I'm happy to be open to suggestions.

Thank you, Director. So what I'm hearing is that You have staff that are going to these streets on a daily basis to ensure that they're ticketing cars that are parked illegally or if it's street sweeping and all that. So we're not relying on residents to call when there's a car that's illegally parked?

Well, in that case, so, Councilor, We are down there ticketing. It doesn't mean though the contractors don't see the parking control officer coming, right? They move and then we're out of that area and then they move back and This is a habit that happens on every street, that the contractors will see, oh, parking control officers coming, everybody move their vehicles, and we tell them not to park, and then, They come back an hour later or 45 minutes later when that parking control officer is on another route. We only have a handful of parking control officers so it's not possible just to stay on those four streets the entire day.

Okay. And I guess the other question, the other point that was made is that there are multiple projects happening at the same time, which means that are many contractors who have permits or when you say contract it could be more than one car and they We know that contractors will come with one car, then only one car has a permit, they pay the ticket. So when there are multiple projects like that on one narrow street... Do we have, like, does that at all get taken into consideration? Either by department or ISD when they issue the permits? Like, or do they just... In case you're building permit and then they go to the traffic department to get their parking permit.

Because it sounds like here the issue is that there are multiple contractors. Because there are multiple projects. So what's the... Yeah, you know, this is not a question necessarily for Director Rinfret. It's more, is there coordination that's happening between... ISD, Engineering, Issuing the Permits, and the Parking Department. Maybe Director Bossoway?

Good evening, committee. I'm Brian Pulswaite, director of the engineering division. One of the responsibilities that my team takes on is permitting site construction work. and in particular the street occupancy permits that are involved with both construction management for bringing Equipment, materials, and so forth to the site, but also the construction that occurs on the sidewalks and our roadways throughout our city. There are a handful of interactions, especially between engineering and ISD, because engineering does have a route on virtually every building permit, especially every new build construction permit, because of the complications and the complexities of construction on the publicways.

Very few, if any of our properties have space on site to manage all of the construction activities. So every construction site has a certain amount of construction management in the public way. Every project goes through a construction management plan process. which includes loading, delivery, and reconstruction of the public way, typically sidewalks as needed. One thing that I'm hearing from you, Chair, is that, like, is there any way to coordinate multiple construction in a close area?

I have to acknowledge that the the Bolton Oat Houghton Prospect neighborhood has received disproportionate might be too strong of a term but a very large amount of construction over the past four or five years greater than what This neighborhood had experienced for years before that. I mean, this goes back to the gas reconstructions, gas line reconstructions that we had in the neighborhood a few years ago, the intersection reconstruction at Oak and Houghton. But also we have, if we go back to 2015, five large apartment building construction going on along Prospect Street, not to mention The various renovations and additions going on in the neighborhood itself.

One piece that we don't have a tool that I've ever found is the ability to restrict a property owner from developing their property properly. because somebody adjacent to them or nearby is also developing their property. I don't believe that's something that we have legal tools to accomplish. And we have to allow every property owner access to their property. So we can't restrict a contractor from accessing their property to do the construction. Where we do have the ability to have some control is when they're blocking and occupying the roadway for intermittent construction, such as when there are

is crane construction when they're reconstructing the sidewalk, when they are... Doing utility service connections. We do make an effort to coordinate those and we've recently started putting together a database system so that we have better tools internally so that We don't have multiple contractors trying to do the same stretch of street at the same time. And we treat that on a first-come, first-served basis. But when it comes to deliveries that occur, those aren't scheduled deliveries. that's a hard word to say, schedulable activities because it's just impractical to know exactly when the person with the drywall is coming in

or when the the brick mason is bringing in there those those aren't things that can be scheduled to a degree and they're usually short in period we schedule things that usually take 3, 4, 5, sometimes all day operations. That's kind of the level that we can schedule from time to time, week to week to avoid those conflicts in the roadway. I don't know if that really is a satisfying answer. I know what you're trying to get at, but the complexities of construction are just really hard to fine-tune down to the level to avoid... The double deliveries that happened this morning that resulted in a one lane condition.

Um yeah like I understand that there's no like legal mechanism that allows us to like have restrictions but As neighbors have mentioned, this is creating safety. Like, this is like a safety issue. It's not just about like, oh, this, you know, this one is parked here illegally. We're blocking fire hydrants and I know that in my ward they've had to deal with this very recently. And I know like city staff will like show up and issue fines and when they're there things are working, when they're not there. The neighbors are dealing with the same issues. I think to me, when it becomes like this is a safety issue,

we need to think about what can we what kind of solutions we you know we can put in place um and i'm not hearing that and i understand like When legally, you know, you cannot ask a homeowner to not, you know, get into their property at the same time. This is a really good example of where a city would be a lot more development. We do want to build more housing. We are in the process of sewer separation and a lot of things are being done. like yeah like think about what can we do there and how can we coordinate all these different projects um because you know god forbid

You know, there's a fire and just like every second matters and the fire truck cannot get to... you know the place so this is like literally where I don't know how like if we encounter if as a department you can you encounter these situations uh like do Are we dealing with more of these situations throughout the city? Because I know in my war they had to deal with that lately and it was... World War II Councilor This is in his ward. His attendance is dealing with that, and I'm sure the counselors are. But just as the engineering department is seeing more of this,

because all these 311 tickets are coming to you to mobility to parking because If it's the case, then we have to come up with solutions. We have to coordinate all these different projects. So would you say, Director Postaway, that we have more of these situations during construction season especially?

To be honest, the amount of... Okay, first, I'm going to recognize my rear-facing trajectory is eight years, nine years that I've been in the city. So... I know some people have a longer backwards view than I do, but I would say for the last... Thank you so much for joining us. There was probably a jump in 18 and 19, or from 18 to 19 in 2019 to 2020. And there has been a slight lull during COVID, but for the most part, Our construction permits over that period of time is rather consistent. So I don't think that we've received a substantially greater amount of construction over the past few years.

And I think it's worth noting that all of these construction projects were started three or four years ago. So these have been in the pipeline for a while. What we might be seeing is a slight lull in construction moving forward because I believe 2025 had a slightly smaller number of permits, but it wasn't significant. I guess what I'm saying is that the construction volume in the city hasn't changed a huge amount. What I think This neighborhood is observing and I do agree with is that the number of development is greater in this particular neighborhood at this particular time than we usually see. I know a number of the construction that you're referring to in your ward.

And honestly, the construction in Ward 5 has been paced out further apart. There hasn't been less or more of it, but it has been spread out a little bit differently. We know that there's been more construction along Prospect in this, frankly, one block than many other single blocks in the city, but we can't control when property owners choose to develop their properties. There's not a tool that we have available to do that and we probably shouldn't have that tool aside from just general zoning requirements.

Okay, I think I'm going to let Councilor Mbah go. I see his hand raised and then I'm interested in talking more about The Fines, because this was one of the requests. You know, Director Renfrew talked about The Fines, and I think it's also worth talking about the... You know how like we're talking about increasing the fines? Do we actually have... Can we actually do that? So again, Councilor Mbah and Ben would like us to discuss that so constituents understand.

Thank you, Chair Said. Dr. Postowitz, thanks for being here, and thank you, Director Renfrey, as well. I guess where I want to start is to make it clear that The neighbors did not see anywhere in their petition that they said they are against construction. you know they have standing if somebody has standing that this thing is an issue it's an issue and we need to address it and I don't hear that which is one problem that I find with the responses that I'm getting So which actually begs the question is, of asking if we need to start issuing conditional permits because there's no way you're going to have a permit and then you violate your own permit regulations. There are citing regulations. Not like somebody saying do not construct.

Yeah, making very clear that this. There's no designated parking spaces for construction workers, which is absolutely strange. One question I have is, Can we designate, which is part of their request, can the city designate construction workers to park in city parking garages so that that alone will eliminate Part of the problem. So they've actually suggested solutions. If these solutions are not Something that is worth considering. Why? That is exactly where that's my number one question. They had very clear A suggestion in terms of how to address these issues without... I have not seen any way that says stop constructing. So this is not even a problem.

Can we designate construction workers to park somewhere else? They have designated zones for delivery and stuff. They've had very clear problems, well articulated and very clear solutions. and I guess I will go back from the beginning to say I wasn't sure also, you know, if we have some data in terms of like the number of calls that have gotten in tonight to 311, just so we can put something into scale and say, this is a real problem. and yes how they've identified the problems I'm more concerned about speaking to the solution that they've provided can you speak to each solution that they've that they've suggested and why it's not implementable.

I can read, I can read whatever. So the first suggestion is, they say, you know, we request... We request the following actions. The first action they request is consistent enforcement and towing. Implement consistent daily enforcement of parking regulations. including towing and posting a detail to ensure vehicles don't return during scheduled street cleaning hours and where vehicles pose a clear safety hazard. or Block Access without residents needing to constantly report to 311. Discuss.

Okay, this is Director Renfrey.

through the chair so parking does not allow we don't issue towing that's a police that's a police matter we can issue tickets and we are down there issuing tickets But as the counselor said, and as this is saying, that the folks do come back. And so unless somebody's there the whole day in that one area, they're going to continue to come back. But we are down there ticketing. For it to be a tow the police would have to be involved. We do not order tows from the parking department.

Thank you, Dr. Jeffrey. Yes. Oh, sorry.

Just follow up questions on that. So could you explain to constituents what's the process for towing?

That would be, you'd have to call the police for a tow. The police would have to come for a tow. Neighbors call the police, right? Okay. Right. And police, you know, that would really be a police matter. I can't answer for the police. That would be a question for them.

Okay. But that is the process. So neighbors know. For towing, you call police. Okay.

Sure. Thank you, Chair. So at least now we've extracted something from the solutions. We've heard the response. It might not be exactly what we want, but these are clearly articulated suggestions that I want to hear why we cannot accomplish this with whole additional parking permits. withhold the insurance of additional temporary on-street parking permits for construction projects in this densely affected neighborhood. On to the current issues. I resolve and a better system is in place. I guess before, you know, I let Director Post away, you know, chime in here. This is exactly why I said yes. We are in a very dense city, the densest city in New England, and yet I don't hear these neighbors saying they don't want construction. But if there's an issue, how do we address this issue based on their suggestion?

uh looks like yeah okay yeah director was wait you're on mute

Through the chair, Councilor Mbah, I know you were directing that to me, but the parking department does handle the parking permits. And I do believe Director Renfret mentioned that they've already begun withholding parking permits for the particular construction sites. So I believe this one We've already been doing for the past year or so.

Okay. Thank you, Dr. Postowais. And then the next... Suggestion also to the problem is a proactive contractor packing solution. Explore solutions that move contractor packing off. of residential side streets, such as providing contractors with parking access to city-owned garages, as I mentioned before, not issuing parking payments to large construction projects, on Residential Side Street. I guess I want to hear about the city-owned garages.

Through you to the chair. So the city doesn't own any garages. We don't have any parking garages.

Okay.

Yes, and it's good that you're providing, you know, Dr. Renfred, this information. You see, it's good. that the residents are also hearing in real time. So we don't live from here. I also met with a bunch of them. That's why, you know, some of them, I don't also see them on here. They will probably be calling me afterward and asking me this thing. So that's why I went. This thing should come out as clearly as possible so that we can determine next step either here or offline. Ensure safety protocols for delivery. Ensure that construction sites proactively implement measures for large deliveries including the installation of temporarily no parking signs well in advance requiring a police officer or detail present to manage traffic and ensure two-way flow during deliveries.

Requiring contractors to provide a materials delivery and storage management plan as part of the building permits submission. I think this last piece seems to be like a no-brainer. Don't they provide that?

Through the chair, Councilor Mbah. Actually, this is a I actually like this one because we started requiring construction management plans about five to six years ago. and large part because we were running into many of the same challenges that the residents here Thank you for joining us. Management structure for construction aside from utility work and cranes and the like. So we did institute what we call a construction management plan, which does look at both

How large construction vehicles travel through the city to bring construction materials to the site as well as large construction equipment such as cranes and so forth Not to mention what's becoming more common, moving entire buildings prefabbed onto sites. So this is actually a pretty big area of our practice right now, but it also includes deliveries and the actual regular use of a construction site, especially where it meets the public way. Two of the things that are, so that kind of discusses the third bullet item on here, but the first two bullet items also exist. So when we do a construction management plan

and for isolated things, what we call traffic management plans, we provide authorization to the traffic department to issue no parking signs for construction. And only those no parking signs are enforceable from a no parking perspective. And each of those signs by city regulation has to be posted 48 hours prior to those parking signs going into effect and requires notification to the city upon placing them. So we do have a pretty robust process for putting up no parking signs and that's an essential process because Those are effectively tow zones for the duration of those no parking signs and the police will not tow unless those steps are all taken into account.

When it comes to police officers' details present, this is something that honestly is a police department function. and and they have A huge amount of responsibility for traffic safety throughout the city and they're every day prioritizing and triaging and making sure that their officers are in the most important places throughout the city. and I know oftentimes they can they're able to attend What to them is a smaller traffic issue. But many of the times they're responsible for frankly more important and more impactful traffic issues. throughout the city that they have to attend to.

But we really have to leave it to the police professionals to prioritize the best location for them to be.

Dr. Persuitt, through your chair, you can see that even the residents, they are all technocrats. They talk through, they're providing all this stuff. This is why, for me, I'm all about solution-oriented. We've already well articulated the problem. I want to understand why we cannot adopt these recommended solutions. I guess we are all here listening in silence. If they have follow-up at the discretion of the chair, they can ask.

But just on that point, because that's an important one about the police officer on site. Do we know for this, does this live just like in the police department, the traffic department? Does that get shared at all with other departments? Do you know if there is a police officer on days when a lot of deliveries and or on streets that have multiple Multiple projects are there near each other. Do you have access to the information or is that something we need the police department to speak to?

The way that we manage that is... The police department is notified. We have a notification process to the police department that effectively for construction in the public way, especially on Major streets like Prospect. The contractor is required to notify the police department and request a detail. Now, the police department chooses whether or not to send a detail because they have The priorities that they have to do. But the contractor is required to request the detail from the police department and the police department determines where are the highest priority locations on any particular day.

and and they're required to notify a day sometimes two depending on how big the construction is ahead of time because they will at times bring in additional police officers for larger construction But I'm talking about larger construction like major street or utility construction that has substantial traffic and safety hazard issues. beyond like beyond this level um which is Actually, a very good point in case is Eversource Electric had been out there a few, I think, last summer along the prospect corridor and regularly details were out there.

particularly to manage that and it was a particular help because of all the construction along there they prioritized that over many other work that they had because

Thank you, Director, for clarifying how the process goes. So do we know if this location is being prioritized by the police department? Do we have that information or is that a question for the police department?

Chair, that would be a question for the police department.

Okay, so we know what kind of order to put in. Okay, Councilor Mbah, I think two more.

Yes.

Could you walk us through that?

Sure, sure, Chair. The third... Last but one is staggered construction approvals. Construction approvals should be staggered so that basic city services Like street sweeping, bus service, snow remover and the regular flow of traffic are not completely obstructed on the same corridors simultaneously. Director Postaway, is that something you can tell that this is all, this is not saying we don't want construction? So can you speak to that?

Yeah. So, Counselor, again, through the chair. My rather long responses earlier in the conversation predominantly covered the staggered construction approvals. We can't stagger construction on private property. We do stagger construction in the public way on a first serve basis. So it is... Especially on a Prospect Street, you're not going to see two utility constructions going on at the same time unless there's really, really good reason and good coordination. I make that caveat because I know at this very moment I have both Eversource Gas and Eversource Electric working together on Bow Street to get a really critical piece of utility work done so that we can move forward with some street construction there.

but generally we keep every utility construction on any particular block staggered for that very very reason Whether it's multiple developers or a utility company, etc. So that is something that we already do. And that goes the same with crane approvals. But we can't stagger. We can't say, okay, you at 109 Prospect, you get to go first. And once you've gotten your CO, then 118 can go. and once they got their CEO, CEO being certificate of occupancy, then the next contractor go, we wouldn't have the tools to do that.

No, that makes sense. But again, they have to be a process and the mechanics of it need to be worked out and if it's you know if somebody violates that process then there are consequences which builds into like the next you know last piece about at what point do you issue stop work orders

All right, I'll carry this one too because this is an ISD function. None of the directors that you have here have the authority, have the legal authority to shut down a construction project. It is actually challenging for us to shut down projects in the roadway without police support because the police have the legal authority to do that. and on private property ISD has the legal authority to do that. So And both of them generally work on an eminent life, health, and safety issue. Not a... Not an inconvenience.

Traffic backing up is not considered an imminent life health safety issue. In some respects, slower traffic means... Less likely of an imminent safety issue, but it is inconvenient. And so it is really hard to Do stop work orders at the level that you're suggesting here.

And thank you for that response, Dr. Persaway. And to you, Chair, I guess, you know, I did not hear... I'm reading that line. I don't hear the residents talking about inconvenience. I see them saying inconvenience. Disregard for safety regulations. I think that's pretty big. And then existing residence consent, I get it. There's a lot in there. But if the residents have standing and they point to one thing, safety regulation, that is grounds to issue a stop-work order, as in my books.

I guess ISD isn't here, but like you said, I thought about ISD before I asked that question because we've, Councilor Sait and I, we were involved in, you know, some other... Issue around another neighborhood where ISD was present, were in the mayor's office trying to resolve, figuring out how to stop projects. you know because of safety issues and it we we write this policy we write this regulation so we can put a clause that you know they say We need to go beyond fines. First, second, third, and then it's a stop-walk order. When it comes to safety regulations, you cannot debate that.

So, Councilor, through the chair, and this is your meeting, so feel free to redirect as appropriate. We do have the authority based off of violating violation of permit requirements. We have the authority to stop issuing permits. But again, it is the police departments and ISD as the official authorities that have the enforcement capability to stop Thank you for watching! That's going to be a conversation for ISD, SPD, and arguably the law department. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Interested, you know, my colleagues also on board to just keep some of these items in committee and and invite ISD director and someone from the police department to speak to what they're doing currently in this area. Um, and, uh, yeah, so I understand, you know, Directly Postal Wait, this is not, uh, you know... That's not what you do. A stop for a chorus is not what you do. However, I do want you to explain to everyone here the process... Scenario one of these construction project has a traffic management plan and the

Contractor did not follow the regulations to the traffic management plan. How do you... So imagine your department would need to communicate that to ISD. So can you tell us what... Because you mentioned earlier... Some projects have traffic management plans. So when they don't respect the regulations, what happens?

Yeah, I think I'm answering this question the way... you're asking it so please please redirect if you need it um so there have absolutely been times when A contractor has created a clear and imminent safety and health problem. In those cases, if we notice it first, we notify either the police or ISD as appropriate. Sometimes they come and ask us for our opinion. and I don't remember exactly which project here, I think it might be 118 where we did have ISD shut down the project because they undermined the public way.

Due to the construction on their site, they created a clear structural problem in the roadway that could have led to a collapse. and we shut them down and we had them repair that before they proceeded work. We've had other cases where a contractor was doing utility work in the roadway in a way that was substantially and recklessly both undermining the roadway but also limiting the ability of emergency vehicles to pass through Even if we could clear out all the traffic, physically enable for the emergency vehicles to pass through. And we've had to shut down projects. But those are extraordinarily extreme events. that have happened. To date, aside from the one that I noticed, I believe at 118,

I haven't neither myself nor any of my staff have witnessed anything that rises to that level but yes we do reach out and have the ability to reach out to ISD and police when that is at a critical nature and both of them through 311 and direct lines um Do listen to constituents and have responded to constituents with things that are imminent life safety issues.

I think here is when you say imminent safety issues, it's not a contract of parking in front of a fire hydrant. Yeah, I think that even though that's extremely unsafe, that's illegal, but that is not the reason for issuing a stop-work order. Again, I still not been here, but... in your experience but again we'll keep this in committee so we have ISD because anything that's enforcement we need ISD to speak to it um and my just other question is um Do any of the projects in this area right now have traffic management plans as part of the application of their permits?

I believe they all do.

They all do. Okay.

For various components of their work.

Yeah. Okay. Are those all public? Can those be?

Yeah, just send us a public records request.

Okay, public records request and you can see what the regulations are. Okay. I think this is all very helpful as counselors and also as neighbors and abutters to and Councilor Wheeler, thank you for waiting very patiently.

Thank you, Chair. Before I start, I know that we're in sort of an unusual time crunch. And Clerk, I just want to double check, do you have to stop and do we have to stop the meeting at 7.30?

I am trying to find if someone else can hop on. Yes, unfortunately to those listening, I am pinch hitting and have a grad class at 740, but let me see if I can get someone to hop on before this conversation ends.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm trying to decide. I've been writing out different questions. It's probably too many to ask. And I think some of these conversations will have the chance to Thank you for joining us. To addressing the way construction happens in the city, to mitigate it in different ways, to plan for it. I appreciate what you said, Director Postlowate, about Making a database and coordinating timing around work that blocks public ways and public routes and about the ability in those extreme situations to intervene.

I think in a couple of these pieces of conversation, I think sometimes we've gone a little bit far afield. In talking about something that is a real issue or really matters but isn't the situation that I think this group of residents is specifically talking about here. So, you know, for example, you were talking about times that A developer or a contractor might be doing work in the middle of a roadway that's fully blocking that roadway and even might pose a danger to the structure of the roadway. Thank you for watching!

is trying to sort of call out though and you know again another distinction that I just wanted to make sure we were sort of having on the table is Yes, there's possibilities that we can talk about of when we might issue a stop work order or cancel a building permit or something like that in an extreme. I think what I'm curious about learning more about is more about how the parking permits themselves work and what our choices are and could be around The types of parking permit that we issue, the windows of time for those parking permits, and the sort of follow-up if there are repeated violations. That's an open-ended set of questions. I am curious, and maybe this is a question more for Director Winfred. I'd be happy to hear from anybody.

And again, I appreciate that it sounds like there was a shift made from issuing a permit that could be used by any vehicle to issuing one that's plate-specific. and I'm curious about what are these different parking permit types? What are the sort of physical scopes and the time scopes of them? And Is it possible for us to be looking at the patterns of violations of parking violations by a given contractor or developer in deciding whether to issue those and for how long?

Thank you. Through the chair. So we have one contractor's permit, which can be address specific with various plates. or plate specific various addresses. So you have contractors in the city that may have more than one project going on in the city at the same time. So they'll get a plate specific permit so that they can visit each one of their sites. We stopped issuing any various which would be address specific various plates permits to Prospect Street last year and said anybody that is coming in they have to be plate specific we're no longer just going to let anybody use this permit because that if it's plate specific typically that person's probably not there every day if they are a contractor that's going from site to site to site So it does kind of alleviate a little bit of the pressure down there. As far as the permits go, they are issued on a monthly basis

But somebody could get the permit for three months, six months, nine months. Currently they're $35 a month. July 1st they will be going up to $50 a month because all the permits in the city will be going, most of the permits in the city will be going up July 1st. Did I answer that or do you have another question?

Thanks, that's hugely helpful. There's so much about that that I don't know, so I appreciate that. If there is a contractor or a developer that's been issued permits, but their vehicles have been... You know, ticketed for beyond sidewalks or ticketed for blocking a driveway or even towed for blocking a driveway. Is that something that's currently tracked so that that can be used in deciding whether to issue permits in the future?

So through the chair, no one can get a permit if they have outstanding tickets. As far as being tracked by the contractor, they wouldn't necessarily know the contractor who owns the vehicle. So it could be Tom Smith working for... Some big contractors, his private vehicle, so we wouldn't know what contractor he's working for. But no one gets a permit unless all their tickets are paid in full. So if you have an outstanding ticket, whether you're a resident or you're a contractor or you're a home health care aide, anyone getting a permit in the city of Somerville must have all of their plate must be in good standing.

Thank you, Director. So just to make sure I'm understanding, let's say there were a vehicle and that contractor was issued a parking permit for work and maybe that was, you know... One of these two different types, the one address various plates or the one plate various addresses. And maybe, you know, is that basically, you know, a fancy piece of paper that's displayed in their windshield?

Through the chair, it's a green hang tag permit, yes.

Thank you. If a parking control officer were to issue a ticket, is there any noting down like, ah, this vehicle has a green hang tag permit with this permit number?

um well they'd only be ticketing it then for a restricted or a hydrant or some other illegal parking um they we would know that if they came in to appeal the ticket we could look up and see oh yeah you had a hang tag but you just disregarded the the rules otherwise they wouldn't be getting so some of these people um counselor will get a lot of tickets before they come in and get a permit We often see that a lot of permit parking tickets, a lot of street cleaning tickets. Then they come in and then they get their permit. We collect the money for all those tickets and then they have a permit to park. but we tell them they have to provide you know they have to abide by all the rules obviously some of them do just like any other constituent

I guess, thank you, Director. I guess the scenario that I'm kind of imagining is if there were someone who had been ticketed many times for Parking on the sidewalk, blocking a hydrant, blocking an intersection, blocking a crosswalk or driveway. If that... Contractor or that vehicle were coming in to apply for a parking permit, I might hope that there's some point where the city either says no or says no. This parking permit is going to cost you more than it would cost somebody else. Or we're not going to give you a six month parking permit. We're going to give you a one month. We're going to see if you have any tickets. Is that a kind of thing that the parking department looks into? I'm not... Obviously, I'm just spitballing a possible policy. I know this is not a full-fledged policy proposal.

But are policy proposals along those lines something that, at least right now, the parking permit... The parking department sees as being sort of in your purview to explore.

Through the chair. So what you're asking is that the clerk at the front basically look up the history on each plate before they're given a permit. I don't I'm sure it's something we probably could do That is administratively a lot more steps with our clerks that are working the front windows. I'm not going to say no to you, counselor. Perhaps. I would have to look into that.

Okay, thanks. In terms of sort of the legal constraints around the city Charging more for parking permits based on the history of a contractor. Or, you know, issuing a parking fine that might be escalated because there have been other recent parking fines. Do you know if there's anything that prevents us doing that besides our own city policies?

Through the chair, I do not know. We do not have an escalation fee currently. We don't have that for parking. I know they have that in ISD for trash. the first time you get a ticket it's one and second time it could be another it does escalate but for parking tickets it doesn't um We might have a lot of upset people if we start escalating fees. But again, we can look into anything. I don't know. I think our system might be able to do it. I would have to check with our vendor to see if that is even something that it's able to do. and we'd have to have a set of rules for it like what does the second escalation is it after a month is it after a year does it stop or you know there's there's a lot of rules and administrative procedures that would have to go into place for that

I appreciate your helping me just get some orientation towards those possibilities. Thank you.

And just on that, Councilor Wheeler, are you specifically asking the director to look into this for the escalation process? Fees for contractors or just in general for everybody?

I am not intending to be talking about just residents doing repeated violations. I'm just thinking about the contractors and contracting related permits.

yeah through the chair that could be also an issue because they're based on plate so we would have to assume that the person that's Issuing the permit would know if they're a contractor or they got that ticket with that plate while they were being a contractor in the past. There's a lot to go into it. There's a lot of what-ifs, and I'm sure that we can discuss them, but there is a lot of what-ifs with that.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I want to be mindful of time and just note that I know we'll be able to have continued conversations about this. So thank you.

Yeah, so it is 7.25 right now and our clerk needs to leave in 5 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. I just want to be clear for tonight that... Our clerk is on vacation and there was an issue with coverage there. So I really wanted us to... discuss the three items and the rest of the items will stay in committee so we can discuss them next month and The items to... Let me just see what is the agenda. This is the letter. So item... They're not numbered here.

But the items that we just discussed, 260123, 260634, 260673. So the public communication and the two orders. I would like to... Keep them in committee so that we can have ISD and the police department next time speak to the enforcement piece. so clerk if you could keep those in committee and then um for the rest of the items let me just check with the clerk look how many uh how much time do we have here Before you have to leave.

Five. I can give five more minutes. Okay. So I would like to...

Could you read the last item resolution ID 260279?

Yes, 260279, a resolution by Councilor Link that the Director of Public Works and the Director of Mobility update this Council regarding plans to keep bike lanes, protected bike lanes, and other separated Micromobility facilities clear and passable on major throughways with particular attention to school routes, timelines after snowfall, staffing, and equipment capacity.

Thank you, Clerk. So for this item, colleagues, we had a lot of snow items. Councilor Clingan was calling them. that were discussed in a different committee, sustainability and infrastructure. This one was sent to traffic and parking, but... This was covered last month in a different committee. I would like to mark this item as completed. And then we have three items, 260603. This one I would like to keep it in committee so we can discuss it next month. This is a big item. And then, Director, would you be able in two minutes or three minutes discuss any of the resolutions there, 260121?

260363 or would you rather prefer just to discuss them next month?

Chair, thanks for the question. My recommendation to you and the committee would be to deal with those with a little bit of time for actual discussion and Q&A. I wouldn't want to race through important items that councilors have submitted given the time. So thanks for the opportunity for the question.

Okay. All right. Great. So we'll keep all the rest of the items in committee. And yeah, so it is 729. Again, thank you, neighbors, for... Bringing all these issues to our attention and again we'll keep those items in committee so that we can have ISD inspection services and the police department next time speak to the enforcement piece and um yeah i just like also i'd say For the fines, Councilor Wheeler asked the questions they wanted to ask Director Bosuwe. All good there. Yeah, and if there are no further questions, clerk, could you please call the roll for adjournment and approval of the minutes at the same time?

Yes, so for approval of the minutes of the Traffic and Parking Committee meeting of March 16th, 2026 and on adjournment, Councilor Mbah?

Yes.

Councilor Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Sait? Yes. We are adjourned. Right, thank you everyone.

Thanks all.