The Boston Globe

Boston, parked cars regularly block buses. Other cities show: it doesn’t have to be this way.

The Boston Globe recently wrote an article about parked cars in bus lanes and how other cities are combating this issue. Featured in the article is the SafetyStick®, designed to make streets safer with auto enforcement capabilities. The SafetyStick® was created by Municipal Parking Services, an enforcement solutions company based in Austin, Texas.

City leaders in Somerville, MA installed three SafetySticks to improve street safety and reduce illegal parking. The SafetyStick captured the license plates of vehicles that were parked for more than three minutes in bus lanes and one crosswalk. The results, “in just 67 days after the waist-high sticks were installed, they counted 469 violations, or about seven per day, The Boston Globe reported.”

Suzanne Rinfret, Somerville’s City Director of Traffic and Parking stated:

“We want to do this because of safety; in a perfect world we would never have a ticket in the city - People were parking in the bus stop from three minutes to 30 minutes. People were abusing these locations.”

Illegal parking is a nationwide challenge. The city of Boston is unfortunately experiencing hazardous parking behavior that puts pedestrians and commuters at risk. There is simply not enough enforcement staffing and infrastructure available to keep illegal parkers accountable. MPS offers the SafetyStick as a solution! They are wireless, and fully solar-powered technology for effectiveness and enforcement accuracy.

The early success in Somerville has caught the attention of The Boston Globe as an option for Boston to deploy the SafetySticks to gain back control of no-parking zones and improve traffic safety.

To view the Boston Globe article, click below.