One Revere City Councillor wants to give senior citizens a break when it comes to parking at city meters.
At Monday night’s meeting, the council supported a motion filed by Ward 5 Councillor Angela Guarino-Sawaya asking that the mayor request the parking department and traffic commission conduct a feasibility study on offering free 2-hour parking at metered spots for Revere residents 65 years of age or older. The residents would have to have a valid driver’s license and vehicle registered in their name, according to the motion.
“My reasoning behind this is that there are many hair salons, nail salons, restaurants, and specialty shops along the Broadway corridor that could benefit from more customers,” said Guarino-Sawaya. “These visits often take longer than the quick 15 minutes that we offer them to do their errands. Two hours of free, metered parking would give eligible seniors time to keep an appointment, enjoy a meal, and shop without worrying that the meter is going to expire; helping both the seniors and the local businesses that are there.”
Guarino-Sawaya said that under the program, eligible seniors might be able to receive a placard that would denote that they are allowed to park at the meters for free for two hours. She said that the parking and planning departments could do a feasibility study to look into the specifics of how the program would be run.
“I think a feasibility study would be a good first step,” said planning and community development chief Tom Skwierawski. “I know our peers next door in Everett just started doing this, and I think we are in many respects pretty similar with them in regard to population and percentage of seniors representing the total population. They have a lot more parking meters, so it is a somewhat different comparison there, but I think it would be good to learn from them after a year of this in operation.”
Skwierawski said another reason Revere may not want to put a new policy into effect immediately is so that it can assess the impact of the relatively new 15-minute meter spaces on Broadway and Shirley Avenue.
“If we were to have a year of that program under our belt and understand how it is affecting our revenues, and then in addition to that in that time, we could look at Everett and see how it is impacting their revenues … I think it is worth exploring,” said Skwierawski.
Skwierawski said the city and the parking department want to be respectful of the concerns of senior citizens, but also want to be able to look at potential implementation and financial issues associated with the policy.