Me to the general parking email address on the city's website:
I drove to your city from Halifax yesterday. Found a pay and display parking spot downtown right by my friend's apartment. Pay and display said I had to pay until 6 pm. Street sign said no overnight parking when snow removal ban is in effect.
I paid up till 6 and went out to Market Square to the Alehouse, then to Salty Jam, happinez and then Big Tide. I spent about $200 in your economy. (I was paying for someone else too).
As you might presume, I was not driving anywhere after that.
This morning I have a ticket on my car for what is, essentially, doing what you really should be encouraging visitors to do. That is spend money, support local festivals, patronize your food and beverage industry and not drive drunk and kill your children.
If this city is to grow out of its backwardness one small initial step you can easily take is to bring your parking policies into this century.
I can't help but wonder how many people's deaths and injuries this policy is indirectly responsible for. Surely you want to do everything you can to encourage people to cab home from your nice, vibrant downtown.
The fact is, many if not most people will choose to "take a chance" on getting caught over the certainty of a $20 ticket. I know this is illogical, but they HAVE been drinking, haven't they?
I was not confronted with that choice. I saw no sign (I parked on Germaine right beside the pay and display kiosk and went into a building right there) as they were at opposite ends of the block. And besides, as a Professional Engineer who does urban design work I can't really be faulted for assuming the city is sophisticated enough not to have a policy that encourages drinking and driving (do you even want people living in the downtown?). The lovely state of the downtown certainly sends a misleading message. It implies this is not a backward little town but then this parking policy proves the reverse.
The real cost of this policy can't be measured in ticket revenue. It is measured in the damages to people's lives it most definitely contributes to. if you can't see that you are in the wrong job.
Saint John really should change this. How many deaths have you had from drinking and driving where the fatal trip initiated downtown after the bars closed? One is too many.
Their initial response:
This by-law (No parking on metered streets from 12 midnight to 7 AM) has been in place for a number of years, so that the city can plow the streets in the winter months and clean the streets in summer months or to do repairs to streets. We do advertiser that all of your lots are free after 6 PM, and are free all weekend and holidays. There is the Coast Guard lot (Water Street), Sydney Street Lot (behind Services New Brunswick), Trinity Lot (behind the Royal Bank).
After looking at the circumstance concerning ticket number AA850883, that this is a valid ticket. A sign was posted just forward of the vehicle. I will hold payment at $20.00 until July 15.
If you have any question please contact me.
xxxx
Supervisor
And me, again:
No there is no sign "just forward of the vehicle". You are wrong. There is a winter snow clearing sign. So you are willing to lie for $20?
Much further down the block there is a sign but I had to actually seek it out.
Not only was it almost a block away, it was hidden by a flag. I sent a photo the next day after I started wondering why I saw no signs. I looked.
The sign was not clearly posted and the ticket is therefore invalid. So enough with the cut and paste answers. Get those flags out of there and you are technically correct though there should still be information proximal to the pay and display kiosk.
I have more pics if you like.
There was no way for me to know that your antiquated and backwards parking policy existed (it kills your kids). This makes Saint John look like one of those Southern good ol' boy towns with the speed limit sign behind a tree, just for tourists.
If I lived there I'd presumably have seen the advertising about parking lots. But then I'd still have to drive under the influence to get to a lot. There was no visible sign saying I could not park overnight in a location I would be expected to see it.
As I said in my follow up email, please advise me when the ticket has been cancelled. You can't hide signs and collect fines.
My next emails are to the councillor and the media. I'll be blogging about your pro-drinking and driving policy anyway. Twitter is already awash in this. And I'll be emailing your local MADD chapter as well.
I'd like to save lives even if Saint John doesn't care.
And here are the photos....
A view as you walk past...
When you actually leave the sidewalk and go looking for it..... Oh, wait, what's that peeking from behind the flag?
Oh, and it wasn't me that damaged that sign, I am not surprised others have gone before me. And the dirty culprit itself, just like the speed limit sign behind the bushes in Butt-F Mississippi....
The monolith responds.... (knowing I live in Halifax)
If you do not agree with this answer. You will be issued a summons and on the summons will be a court date that will allow you to tell your side in front of a judge and he will make the final call.
xxxxx
Supervisor
And I return fire, twice:
Now I know why I did not know there was no parking overnight. A store has flags up on the sidewalk. One of them obscures the only sign I would have had a chance to see. I walked right down this sidewalk after parking. Do you see the sign in the attached photo?
Hint. It is right behind the Union Jack.
So I never had a chance to know. Being a visitor to the city. I had no idea what the ticket was for because the no parking order was improperly posted.
As long as the flag obscures the sign none of the tickets on Germaine are legal.
Please send me confirmation that ticket AA850883 is cancelled.
Thank you.
I would advise you to have the store remove the flag.
No response... I try again.
Go to Germaine Street yourself. Park right by the Kiosk across the street from the used record store.
Pay for your parking.
Walk towards King Street. (I turned down a one way street)
Tell me if you see a sign. There is one, but unless you look for it, knowing it has to be there, you don't see it.
I was a visitor to your city. I am home in Halifax. You act like one of those sheriffs in a two cent town in Mississippi, hiding your signs behind bushes and wanting money from out of towners.
So, he actually must have had to walk by for some other reason, because he went and realized that there were flags blocking the sign.
After looking into the circumstance concerning ticket number AA850883 that this is a valid ticket.
Different stores along Germain Street will put flags out that the city will give them to display on the street. I have talk to the owners of Bustin's Furniture and they stated that they take the flags down at 17:00 every day, and on the day in question they do not have a written down, but they are sure that the flag was taken in.
If you have any question please contact me.
xxxx
Supervisor
Of course, I went by before the flags were down, this bit of logic escapes Mr. Bureaucrat.
So I try to be nicer:
I believe you that the flag may have been taken down around 5. I parked just before 5 and walked down to Market Square. The place was open when I went by.
And I try even more to be nice.... (this was probably a bad move, I think he interpreted it as his winning in some way)
I know you are just an employee doing what you are told. Saint John would probably go bankrupt without parking fines..
All I can tell you is that as a visitor to your city, I left feeling that I really was jerked around, and conned into a ticket. I felt like you did not really want me to visit.
If that is consistent with the direction you get from your superiors, well, so be it. But there was no way for me to have avoided that ticket.
The flag probably covered the sign. It was not that close to where I was parked anyway. There was a sign further back, but I was looking for the street number. I parked, paid until 6, knocked on the door, got my friend and we walked down to begin the evening. From that point on, I was either going to have to drink and drive or get a ticket. It is simply a sucker punch play unlike any other I have encountered in North America. Italy has something like it, mostly in the corrupt towns in the south, with the clocks on the windshield that they don't tell tourists how to use. But this is Canada, we expect a fair system, not one designed to fleece us.
The downtown business owners I have spoken with all hate it, partly because it discourages business, but also because it makes people more likely to drink and drive (no intelligent person disputes that), increasing their liability as the establishment that may have last served the drunk driver.
And if you really do clean the streets every night, allow me to advise you that your money would be far better spent repairing the many many potholes throughout the downtown. I certainly experienced those as well.
Maybe I was getting somewhere? Is there hope for logic in a backwards little place like this?
This ticket complaint is still under review, with the your additional commons (sic).
xxxx
Supervisor
No, it goes up the line to an even bigger bureaucrat. I mean, these people cannot grasp that they are supporting entrapment and encouraging drinking and driving. It's like the emperors are all running around naked and everyone knows they are too stupid to believe you when you tell them, so they let them run around naked and laugh at them behind their back.
The grand poobah speaks. Note, his closure time for the store is different from what the other guy told me, reinforcing my point, but he then expects me to have gone back to the street and check for no parking signs I might have missed due to flags, I guess. What a total dumbass. And this is the boss.
I have reviewed the comments outlined in your e-mail. For your information, the furniture store has permission and places the flag on the street each morning and removes the flag around 6pm each day. The sign basically states that there no parking from 12midnight to 7am and the flag does not cause a problem because it is removed long before the parking restriction comes into effect.
The parking ticket # AA850883 is a valid ticket and I will hold the fine amount at $20.00 (discounted fine amount) until July 28, 2011 and if the fine remains unpaid after that date the ticket will continue to increase. Because the discounted period has expired, the ticket cannot be paid online at the discounted amount and you must call our office at 506-xxxx or my direct line number xxx and advise my staff we are holding the ticket amount at $20.00 until July 28-11.
Please call me at xxxx if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
xxxx
General Manager
Saint john Parking Commission
By this time, I have decided it's not worth the effort. They are beyond help. This was like dealing with a lost tribe of people who are living in the 50's. But I decide to give it one more shot....
How was I supposed to know?
A visitor comes to your city. Parks. Pays as per the apparent signs. Returns to their car to find a ticket. It turns out the only chance he would have had to see a sign was when it was covered by a flag permitted by the city.
That is entrapment. A dishonest practice.
I would like to think you'd treat your guests better.
In the end, I just paid the ticket. But I had written to the councillor for the area about my experience, as well as emailed back and forth with one of the local business owners. All the business owners know how stupid the parking commission is, but they have been in Saint John so long, they also know how ineffective and plain lazy their municipal government is. They have a budding jewel of a downtown happening, but they also have a parking policy that is brutally inhospitable to the people who they expect to come spend money to keep it viable.
I wrote out this experience in clearer language to the local councillor, Mel Norton. He seems to be a bright guy who might actually grasp the connection between the parking policy and their high drunken driving rate.
I am writing out of a serious concern for the people of your city, and, indeed, the surrounding county, regarding the City of Saint John's downtown (I think you call it Uptown) parking policies.
I came to the City this weekend for Saltyfest, and to visit friends and family. I think your City is becoming one of the best places in Atlantic Canada to visit for the food, pubs, and local music and art. The small, but vital downtown "entertainment district" has grown in a very organic manner and shows other cities, such as mine (Halifax) how older buildings can be integrated into a commercially successful and active urban neighbourhood. BUt you have one major problem.
With any western european culture comes the presence of establishments that offer alcoholic beverages, some as bars, and some as part of a dining experience. Saint John is better than most at this, and really "plays above its weight" in the quality thereof. It is getting so good that people come there for it, and they spend a lot of money in those businesses.
At the same time, a downtown like that also attracts the element of the local population who enjoy the social aspects of eating and drinking out, including the local college and university populations.
In any city in the world with self knowledge and sophistication around the consumption of alcoholic beverages, there is an acceptance that in some cases, people will drink more than they should before driving. This act has become socially unacceptable in our society, (well, at least in Halifax). Here we do whatever we can to offer people an alternative to drinking and driving. The busses and ferries now run later than they used to, there is, during holidays season, Operation Rudolph, where for a charitable donation, someone will come and drive your car home, with a friend following to take them back for another trip. And, most importantly, overnight parking - leaving your car at a valid spot instead of driving home, is encouraged. The next morning, if it is a working day, you will even see the ticket patrol giving a bye to cars until 9 am so people have time to get them before work.
We know this policy makes a big difference in people's decisions as to whether or not to take the chance and drive when they are close, or even when they know they are over the legal BAC limit. Many people, working with the fuzzy logic of their obvious state, weigh the two options - the risk of a ticket on the car, vs. the risk of getting the car home while drunk.
In Halifax, that's an easy decision. No chance of a ticket, vs. a chance of getting caught. In Saint John, however, you remain in the dark ages. That same decision is: Certainty of getting a $20 ticket, vs. a good chance of not getting caught. (you see my little play with the drunken logic there?).
The odd, ill conceived policy had the minor impact of totally annoying a tourist to your city who ended up spending over $400 in your economy, by having him find a ticket on his windscreen for doing what is expected of you in most North American cities - leaving one's car in a parking space until the morning. And that has issues that matter a lot to your downtown businesses and to the reputation of your city in the region (yes, frankly, it makes you look like idiots), but it pales in comparison to the real damage it does.
I'm 53. I am a responsible drinker, probably like you. Once I have had two drinks, I stop if I am driving. The third drink is, for me, a trigger that the car stays where it is. My brother, a wine and beer writer, is pretty well the same. We don't drive when we are even close to the legal limit. But you see, we have learned how to drink by now. I'd guess that many of the younger people I saw out in Saint John that evening have not learned how to drink responsibly yet.
When faced with the decision above, I'd take the $20 fine (even though I had no idea it existed and feel exactly like a tourist caught in a good ol' boy southern town's pet speed trap with the old sign behind the tree gag). But I bet many of those other cars that were still on the street when I crashed at my friends' place on Germaine Street were not driven away by sober people.
You see, this policy encourages people to drink and drive. I enquired the next day and found, much as I expected, that you have experienced a number of accidents and even a couple fatalities resulting from trips that originated at night from your downtown.
Now I am not saying the City is totally liable for those deaths and damage, but I am saying this policy likely contributed to them. And you have to ask why you even have a policy that:
1) Discourages people from leaving their car on the street overnight when they are drinking;
2) Discourages people from staying longer at local businesses and spending more;
3) Is slanted to harm tourists and visitors to the city, compared to residents, who might better know about the policy and apparent parking lot options; and
4) Discourages anyone from wanting to live in the downtown. One thing we know about the economic success of modern cities is that getting people to live downtown is paramout to their success. Who would want to live there when you can't have someone drop in and stay over, let alone park your car or rental car on the street in front of your place overnight?
One reason staff keep faling back on to support this policy is for street cleaning and maintenance. This is unheard of - closing an entire downtown from on-street parking every night to allow for the chance that city staff will be working overnight? Everywhere else, we either have designated nights (Monday or Tuesdays usually) when this happens on different streets for cleaning; and signage and meter hoods are used for specific construction related maintenance activities. You current policy cuts off its nose to spite its face.
But the main concern here is that you are actively enforcing a parking policy that is almost certainly indirectly responsible for people's deaths. In trying to not break one law, people may choose the risk of breaking an even greater one, even if only to relocate their car to a parking lot.
My own ticket concerns are from both the perspective of feeling like I was conned, because the sign that was supposed to inform me of the policy (if I had actually believed it) is impossible to see on Germaine Street as one of three flags put out on the street by a shop down Germaine, past which I walked to the Alehouse after parking, obscures the sign, sometimes wrapping around it.
So my tourist experience of Saint John's downtown was: find my friends apartment, park in front at a pay and display (I overpaid with a toonie for time from 5 to past 6), go out of the town with her and other friends and drop $200 that night. Wake up to find a ticket on my window for a "mystery reason". Look for signs saying I could not park, not find any until I peered under a Union Jack hiding the sign, and then realize your city encourages drunk driving with this policy.
I complained to the parking email person and today got a cut and paste answer (I know it is a cut and paste answer, because my brother showed me the email he got for a very similar complaint before, which I had no idea about). I then went out and spent another $160 in your economy shopping for records, beer and wine. Then I went out to lunch at Brit's where I spent another $26. Over the day, I also put another $7 in various pay and display parking kiosks and meters in your city.
The next day I came into town and survived the rain for the songwriters circle in front of the Alehouse and had lunch there (another $25) and eventually went out to Rothesay with my brother.
And for this reasonably large personal injection into your economy I get a $20 ticket for not drinking and driving, because of a hidden sign, when I had overpaid already for my parking spot. I have to tell you, Moncton kicks your ass at this game. They want my business, not my parking fines. It really soured my visitor experience. I feel like I've been ripped off and am significantly less inclined to come back to the downtown.
But mostly, I am concerned about the drinking and driving aspects of the by-law. You really need to have it changed.
Here is his response. I sense some hope here, but really, this is a one company, blue collar town, and it may always be.
Thank you for taking time to articulate so well this concern. This is an issue I really had not heard of or considered - so thank you for making me aware of it and giving the perspective of a visitor.
I'm sorry it has taken me so long to respond.
Thank you for visiting the Uptown and enjoying what is, in my view, the only urban experience in NB! Slowly but surely investments in the heritage district is paying dividends. Thank you for spending your hard-earned dollars here! It is so appreciated.
I agree with what you have said - I think this policy should be changed. If I understand the core of your concern would it be:
Parking tickets should not be issued to vehicles left parked overnight on city streets within the Uptown business district?
Would it make sense to have the exemption only apply on certain nights of the week, e.g. Friday-Sunday?
And my last words....
In my opinion, Saint John's Uptown area has grown in a healthy, "organic" manner. As an occasional visitor to the City (since 1981 when I worked on building Market Square, right out of University), I have had the luxury of seeing this progression. I appreciate how it has not done a lot of the energy sapping "leapfrogging" that many similar places have fallen prone to, diluting the investment, and the audience. The core strength is excellent, I believe.
The level of sophistication in the businesses, in the private sector, is simply not matched by the Municipal Government policies that I was subjected to, and have heard from residents and business owners alike since my unpleasant experiences with the draconian parking policies.
To hear the Staff response to my concerns is to hear the voice of "that's just how we've always done things" - a sure and certain path to extinction. Change is good, when done right. Yes, change can be bad, but really, even bad change can be better than stagnation and death by entropy.
Here is the one main lesson I can offer you, based on 30 years of engineering and urban planning and design experience. You are not unique. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before. You don't need to re-invent the wheel. You just need to climb out of the dark ages and into something approximating this decade. It's pretty easy, really. Find a similar size small city with a healthy downtown. See what they do. My guess is that they allow overnight parking until 9:00 AM every night except for one, which is posted, for street cleaning, usually during the early part of the week.
These cities will also have a healthy size residential population in the downtown. Do you have any idea how many Saint John residents are employed in the bar and restaurant business? It is a LOT. Affordable and higher end housing mixes are where it's at these days - all quality build, but in different unit sizes, so the smaller, bachelor apartments and one bedrooms can house students and the hospitality industry workers, while, in the same buildings, larger units attract urban professionals and retirees who often winter away. No ghettos, just a healthy mix.
But to encourage people to live in the downtown, there needs to be a system for those people to have access to guest parking, or even year round on street (some streets closed one night a week for cleaning and maintenance) with winter off-street options. Snow happens. We need to deal with it.
Recognizing that parking can be viewed in two ways - a short term thinker's "cash cow", or a long term thinker's "leverage", takes a degree of sophistication and intelligence that needs to exist anyway if Saint John is to not stagnate. The economic growth and subsequent tax revenue benefits from a healthy parking policy can far outweigh the restrictive, negative, and, frankly, petty means of generating funds that parking tickets to visitors and tourists represents. Vision is not some elusive rare thing - it is just common sense with an ability to imagine how things might be better.
Again, the biggest issue here is the reality of how this late night policy, when the streets are basically empty anyway, most certainly increases the number of people driving when they really shouldn't. City staff can make excuses all they want, but no reasonable person, who has ever had more than they perhaps should have to drink, can dispute the reality that people sometimes choose to drive because they will get a ticket if they don't move their car.
I would recommend that Saint John:
1. Simply not ticket vehicles between 5 pm and 9 am unless they are parked where they are in the way of a scheduled street cleaning, clearly posted, or blocking access or egress to an off street property or hydrant. (how much patrol staff time would this save?)
2. Advertise this in conjunction with an anti-drinking and driving campaign. "Leave Your Car when you Leave the Bar" (free slogan by me)
3. Initiate, for the 2011 Holiday season, Operation Rednose as done in Halifax (they did not invent it) - volunteer groups respond to a hotline - two people come out in a car, one drives your car home with you in it (puking only happens in the drunk's own car, which is good), the other follows to take the driver back to headquarters. This is done for a set fee (ask them about the fee structure) that goes to the charity they are volunteering through. It works great here. Some bars will even call them for you, let you put it on your tab, and they give the cash to the volunteers. (I HAVE SINCE LEARNED THAT THEY DO PRACTICE THIS - GOOD!!)
Ask my brother - I'm an optimist - I see the positive side of things. I am sure you can see how this can accomplish both the objectives of enhancing the business life and the entertainment quality in The Uptown, while at the same time really reducing the incidence of drunk driving in your community.
Responsible drinking is possible - as you now know, both my brother and I practice it regularly.
Every goal can be furthered by policies that make it easier to do the right thing than to do the wrong thing. Any policy that makes it easier to do the wrong thing is, by definition, a bad one. I'll just use one more cliché - you get more with sugar than you do with salt.
Regards, and good luck with this. It can really save people's lives.
