No, just taking the parking tickets isn’t cheaper than paying for a garage
We answer a Quora user’s question about parking in Boston.
There’s an idea floating around out there that it’s cheaper just to pay a parking ticket in Boston than to pay for a garage or another, legal parking spot.
A user on Quora (it’s basically Yahoo! Answers but much more reliable) asked if they could game the system in Boston:
The answer, according to a woman named Candy at the city’s Department of Transportation, “depends on how much money these people are willing to throw away.’’
Candy’s reaction—which was the same as that of the Boston Police spokeswoman who pointed me toward the Department of Transportation—was of the “why the hell would anyone want to do that?’’ variety. Candy told me that there are no lasting ramifications, provided you pay your parking fines within the allotted 21-day period. The problem is, authorities don’t just give you one parking ticket and call it a day.
“Every two hours, they can issue another $25 ticket’’ for parking in a metered spot, Candy said. “Within a little over two hours’ time, you’ve already racked up $50.’’
If we’re talking about leaving your car somewhere you shouldn’t while you work, you could presumably come back to find over $100 in fines sitting on your windshield. And once a meter shuts off at the end of the day, depending on the rules for the particular street you’re on, there are even more fines to consider.
“You have to look at the signage on the street, because something else is going to happen once the meter shuts off,’’ Candy said.
The $25 figure is only the lowest given by the city; parking in a “resident permit only’’ area elicits a $40 fine, double parking $30-45. We’re assuming you’re not doing something completely dumb like parking in a pedestrian zone or blocking a handicap ramp, which get you a $100 ticket.
Nice try, but the math doesn’t work.
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