At Monday's Long Term Debt Committee, the mayor revealed what we knew all along: she wants the city to buy 600 Main Street (across from City Hall), for almost $9 million, chiefly for its parking lot, not for office space.
She is an abomination to anything urban.
https://www.wcac.org/government/meetings/city-council-committees/long-term-debt-committee-5-18-26
At the February 17 Ordinances & Rules Committee meeting, discussing the proposed hotel project on Moody St at the abandoned Construction Zone site by the river.
Hanley thought the 500 off-street spots within a few blocks of the site are insufficient, because, "in the winter they're not walking."
His constituents in ward 3 live closer to Lexington and Belmont than to Moody St.
Not only is the traffic commission incompetent in designing our streets, it is incompetent at economics.
As it's 70° out on Mother's Day and with outdoor dining not set to start for two more weeks, consider the March meeting.
The city official in charge of making sure traffic lights and street lights are working wanted to end outdoor dining. Consider why such an official would even have a say in these matters in the first place.
The commission voted to repeat last year's setup, except restaurants cannot use the parking spaces in front of neighboring businesses, even if their owners are ok with it (not that any private business has any ownership stake on street parking spots).
Director of Wires Tim Kelly wanted to end outdoor dining altogether.
"I think the [parking] spaces are more valuable on Moody Street than [outdoor dining]."
Let's do the math. You can fit seating for at least ten people in the space of one parked car. Let's say from 6–10 p.m. on a Friday and Saturday, those tables turn over twice, and 20 people each spent $30 on meals. That's $600 in money spent at a locally owned business.
How much would the likely one occupant of a parked car spend at local businesses throughout the course of a day, if the curb space were used for parking? And this assumes that driver would not have simply parked at one of the 500 off-street spots within a half-block of Moody Street, or in a street spot not being used for outdoor dining.
TL;DR; the traffic commission is incompetent in all matters over which it has a say.