Parking Complaints Soar in Boston’s Seaport District

Residents and workers in Boston's Seaport are facing significant parking challenges, including difficulty finding spots and costly parking fees.

Parking is such a problem in the Seaport that the Boston Globe reported that parking complaints are the most common issue reported to Boston's 311 system. That's more than 60,000 complaints in the past year, tripling the requests for street cleaning.

The highest concentration of parking complaints occurs along a 200-meter stretch of Congress and Summer streets in the Seaport, where more than 1,000 complaints were filed in the past year. Other popular complaint areas include Thomas Park in South Boston and regions near Route 28 and Interstate 90 on the South End–Bay Village border.

Over the past decade, the Seaport community has undergone a transformation from a parking lot to an area filled with lofts, hotels, and offices. All this growth, however, has significantly worsened the parking problem. 

Coupled with the challenges of finding a spot are the high fees for parking. The Boston Globe reported that the Seaport South Garage charges more than $40 a day, according to the garage's booking service.

Parking violations range from $15 to $120, with enforcement primarily targeting safety violations, such as blocking fire hydrants and pathways.

In a response to the Boston Globe, Nick Gove, the city's deputy chief of streets, said, “It is not our intent to issue a violation for somebody who was trying to comply.” Gove added that residents can file a ticket appeal through the city's website.

Despite ongoing parking frustrations, some residents have accepted parking difficulties as an inevitable part of Boston's growth and increasing population density.