Back in the days of meters and quarters, when you had errands that took you to different blocks of Warren Street and you didn't want to walk from one place to another, you might, say, park in the 600 block to pick up a prescription from CVS, park again in the 500 block to renew your dog's license at City Hall, park again in the 300 block to have Jonathan diagnose your laptop, and finally park in the 200 block to get a baguette at La Perche. Each time you parked, you would put a quarter or two in the meter, and each time you moved your car, you would probably leave some time on the meter for the next person.
With the new parking system, things work differently. The payment you make is not for a specific space but for your car's right to park anywhere within the zone--the zone being all of Warren Street. So, if you think all your errands will take about an hour, you use the app, or a kiosk if there happens to be one nearby, to purchase an hour of parking. Then, during that hour, you can park your car in as many different spots as you need to.
COPYRIGHT 2026 CAROLE OSTERINK
It works great if you have multiple places on Warren St. to go to, but if you only need to be at one place, it costs you $.89. With the old system you could go to 3 places for $.75 and pass on your extra time to others. If the new system would LOWER our taxes, the extra cost is worth it. Otherwise, its just another tax on our citizens.
ReplyDeleteAnd each time you are backing up to leave your parking space, especially if you are driving a large multi-ton vehicle, be extra careful that you don't knock over someone standing inches from and directly behind your multi-ton vehicle, possibly at one of the corners. It might be someone who is very short, maybe the driver of the car parked behind you who is standing in front of their car for a minute or two, fiddling with their phone and/or reading and/,or scanning the parking payment sign on top of a meter pole that is facing the street (off of Warren) -- with little to no awareness of you or their immediate surroundings -- so that they can pay for their space. Or perhaps the person standing motionless in the street directly behind your multi-ton vehicle is a Hudson parking enforcer dressed in all black taking ten or thirty seconds or more to scan your license plate to see if your vehicle deserves a parking ticket while not paying attention to anything that is going on around him, completely unaware that you are at the wheel of your very quiet multi-ton vehicle ready to back up and move on to another parking space or get home without killing or hurting anyone in the process
ReplyDeleteThese are unwelcome, serious safety hazards and life and death issues that did not exist in Hudson until this year thanks to HPD's new parking payment system designed to increase parking revenue (and unintentionally increase the danger of being run over or running someone over with a multiton vehicle) . These obvious new dangers were thrust on us with zero consideration or warning from HPD, as if nothing has changed and everything is just hunky dory with the new parking payment system. All in HPD's quest for more money, Hudson parking enforcers, visitors and residents be damned (and just in their way)!
This is the best thing about the new parking system! But I think it is only true for the text to park, payment through the Park Mobile app has zones.
ReplyDeleteAlso helpful to be aware that even adding time to your existing parking session incurs an additional fee. So better to overestimate your time on Warren.
Lastly the text to park fee is .39, while the fee on the park mobile app is .60 so seems to be a win on many levels.
Wow—this post makes it sound like there are plenty of parking spaces around Hudson. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great feature of the new system, and a reminder that there is plenty of room to park.