Politics & Government

Paid Parking Could be Coming to Winchester

The suggested paid parking system in Winchester will be to encourage higher turnover at spaces, while pushing commuters further away from the town center.

Parking could become quite different for the commuters and residents of Winchester.

A combined committee of Planning Board members and the Board of Selectmen has been formed to try and devise a different parking system in the town. The committee is exploring the option of instituting metered parking around Winchester. The main focus right now is trying to determine the amount it would cost to park in certain locations around Winchester.

"The whole goal of this program is to make it as simple as possible," said the town's consultant Jason Schreiber. "There's a lot of complexity right now. We identified close to 30 separate different regulations that are enforced in the town. The goal is to really get it down to four categories. It makes it convenient for customers and clear to figure out."

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Right now the committee is working on figuring out a possible pricing plan and what areas will fall under what pricing plan. Main Street and Church Street, along with the Waterfield Parking Lot will most likely be entered into the highest pricing plan.

According to Schreiber, the object of having a pricing-plan, is not to necessarily target the users because it doesn't matter who parks there. You just want to make sure that customers going to shop at the stores can find a space.

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The proposed plan will have a tiered payment system. The heaviest areas of use will have the first 15 minutes free and then it will cost 50 cents an hour to park for the first three hours, with the price escalating throughout the day. The idea is to make it unenviable to park along Main Street near the rail line for commuters or in the Waterfield lot, freeing up spaces for customers. However, with the tiered system, it could potentially cost up to $24 a day to park.

"I just want to emphasize that it's about availability, not revenue," Selectmen Roger Berman said. "And in this year of all years, I'm looking for revenue any place I can find it, but we're not trying to do it here."

As you move away from Main Street the prices will drop. In the next zone, drivers could get the first 30 minutes free and pay 25 cents an hour with it costing $12 to park for the day. That area may also include the upper Aberjona lot. From there it will go down to 6$ a day, where the Jenks parking lot would fit in.

Winchester residents can still purchase a yearly permit, but there's discussion of raising the price from $250 to $400 for the year.

The goal of the system is not on the money, but instead trying to encourage movement from those spaces. The town believes that commuters are filling up those ideal spots on Main Street and in the Waterfield lot and are forcing potential customers who want to shop at those stores further away from the town center.

The committee is working on a plan that will more reward the drivers who are only going to shop at a few stores for a few hours. That's why there's talk of an escalation plan, to hopefully drive the commuters out to the cheaper lots. There was also discussion of having a time limit on the spaces, so you can only buy up to a certain amount of time at once.

"We just have to be careful because we're going from zero to something and that's a big adjustment," Schreiber said. "Right now there's zero incentive whatsoever to park anywhere else. Now with an alternative (commuters) can park further away."

Of course there is still a lot to be worked out, but this is a change that seems bound to happen, the prices and times may differ over the next few months, but the paid parking will be something Winchester residents will be almost surely be dealing with.


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