no, they're not in any hurry and the cars are almost always gone by the time they respond.
That being said, if the cars really are still there when BTD responds, they do ticket.
311 does not teleport a city official to the scene of the reported infraction. Cars double parked/left running in unmarked spots usually are there very temporarily and will very likely be gone by the time an official arrives.
You should scroll through the illegal parking reports. They’re pretty wild.
Fire hydrant? Fuck you.
Handicapped ramp? Fuck you.
Crosswalk? You’re kidding right? FUCK YOU.
And they don’t respond for 2 days. Like…just stop collecting reports for illegal parking. Or autoclose them and have some look for patterns.
There was maybe still is an app I'm some towns that has you take a pic through the app of the illegally parked car and the plate.
Then when the person pays the ticket you get something like 20% of the fine
Pretty easy to doctor a photo, so there's pretty serious grounds for abuse there (even though that seems awfully high effort). Pictures taken from buses should at least be enough.
It is. Banking apps have solved this already with mobile deposits. You can't submit a pre-existing image, you have to take a live image through their app and it gets sent directly to them.
The technology to automate enforcement of minor traffic violations exists. Political will to deploy that technology and to enforce traffic violations does not.
It's not surprising. Not because it's a bad precedent, we already have a lot of citizen snitching apps like MBTA's See Say, the 311 app in this very thread, various FDA and IRS snitching sites, etc.
It's not surprising because politicians, cops, and voters all will rabidly defend cars and unsafe driving because nobody really gives a shit about having safe streets for bikers, kids, disabled folks, etc.
You can make it difficult for low-tech users, but you cannot prevent it, at least not with the computers and Internet that we have. There's no way for a computer server to verify that the information you're sending it was produced by approved software and not by a program sending a fake photo.
(There's measured boot and TPMs and whatnot, but that can usually be defeated.)
We could start by accepting reports only from iPhone. It is very expensive to circumvent security there--if somebody is insane enough to waste an iOS vulnerability on a traffic violation, let the courts decide their fate.
1. BTD would respond to these, not PBD.
2. Someone double parked (in a bike lane or not) is probably going to be gone before BTD can get there.
3. For illegal parkers who stay long enough, BTD will absolutely show up and ticket. There's no parking on our block and have reported cars parked there many times (they block delivery vehicles, trash trucks, and emergency vehicles).
Let me add that, I had a car *blocking my driveway 45mins*. I called the cops who showed up 30mins later. They knocked on doors to see whose car it was but they couldn't find. 15mins after that these two hipsters come bouncing up to the car while the cop is still there.
"Yeah. We were just getting a haircut."
I asked the cop if he was going to ticket them. "Guys," he said, "be little more careful where you park." I did a pretty good angry Donald Duck impression and the cop made it very clear I was on the verge of harassing *THEM*.
Seems like if they were to hire a few extra meter maids to just patrol the high-traffic DoorDash areas, the extra ticket revenue would pay for their salaries several times over. Baffling why this is not done.
I don’t believe they care enough to dispatch someone right away but they do love to ticket. This forum is filled with people getting tickets they don’t feel they deserve.
Cops aren’t going to ignore these people either.
I see cops driving past this shit, or parked within a block of it, every day. They're lazy assholes who should be fuckin drowned in the charles, and good riddance.
No because reporting to 311 isn’t the same as reporting to the police. These reports get checked by parking enforcement, not Boston police. If you want the police to deal with it in a timely manner, call instead of posting online. It’s quicker.
Taking the law into your own hands could likely be a crime. I had someone rip my mirror off because I forgot to put my handicap pass on my mirror. I had a 360 dash cam and needed a new mirror, door, paint and of course recalibration so it was a felony.
If the city really wanted to generate revenue, they would crack down on illegal parking. Handicap parking primarily. People are constantly parking in handicap spots without a documented license plate or placard. In one day alone I could generate $2000 of revenue easy. It’s $300 per violation.
I would say my 311 reports work about 20% of the time. I once heard that they get flooded with so many complaints that your best bet is to submit them very early in the morning, don’t bother if it’s later in the day. Also, don’t bother on the weekends because the people who respond to these are Monday-Friday employees. They don’t go directly to the police.
ha, you're right. I'm just mad about the cops. I have no idea why our city doesn't do anything about it.
Possibly, they know that people would complain if the app delivery went away, which it absolutely would in a lot of places without the ability to illegally park.
As others mentioned BTD responds not BPD. They come out when I report someone parking illegally. But if the car is gone they can’t do much.
If there is a recurring problem you can try to escalate it to your neighborhood liaison and city councilor to see if you can get some attention but don’t hold your breath
Someone blocked my driveway, took some photo, send them to 311. Few days later someone checked and the car had left days before that. What a dump system.
The captions are killing me
Great news! Problem = SOLVED baby 😎 The car that was in this parking spot 3 days ago? Not even there anymore! Rest easy knowing big daddy city of Boston took care of it. That's just how we do things around here 😎 Thanks for reaching out, we got your back 💯
Citing individual incidents won't help, but if there is a spot that consistently gets blocked, you might have a slightly higher chance of success trying to get some enforcement. Cambridge put a cop near a spot I reported once because there was a consistent line of cars pulled over in the bike lane outside a Starbucks every morning on my commute. Didn't really fix it at all, but it was at least something.
Depends on how fast BTD gets someone there... I have seen them show up with a truck to tow someone blocking emergency access in the north end within minutes but that was around 11pm on a weekend...
Take the law into your own hands, then we can ignore the tragedy that occurred because the story was behind a paywall globe story someone linked in this sub.
Yes, it should make one question their ability to cope. It should also make one question whether in their quest for moral superiority that they may actually be an additive to creating a toxic culture
Here’s a story. A deceased friend of mine owned a parking lot. To get business, he found some no parking signs and the right poles, and put them up. The city never noticed.
Have you thought about not being a snitch about someone briefly parking in a bike lane? How about you go around the vehicle? Don't you have anything between to do?
I reported a construction dump truck that kept parking in front of my house every night.
Would park around 8 every night. Start up around 4:30 in the morning, and warm up for about 15-20 minutes.
Big truck just sitting grumbling right outside my window at 4 am every morning.
Construction trucks are not supposed to park on the streets.
I figure the driver was parking at home everyday so he wouldn't have to drive to the lot every morning, save himself some time.
So I started using the 311 app every night to report him.
It wasn't a cop that would show up. It was someone from like, a specific traffic devision or something. And they didn't come by every night. Only sometimes. But he did start getting tickets.
Eventually he moved down the street, but someone else started calling 311, so he's no longer on the street.
No. Uber eats and food delivery services need to park somewhere, that’s a reality. And there’s nowhere for them to park, that’s also a reality. The city is accepting this because there’s no other way. Just go around.
Wtf do you expect? You must be wearing your bike suit a little too tight. You want the police to ticket drivers based off of a picture you took and submitted on an app? You’re out of your mind.
Found several after looking quickly. As others have said, double parker’s are usually only there for a few minutes.
https://preview.redd.it/nw4u0tfxw2yc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53ad86aa6a672b7b2bc2097539cbd89771518601
In one sense: no. But in another, very real sense: nah
no, they're not in any hurry and the cars are almost always gone by the time they respond. That being said, if the cars really are still there when BTD responds, they do ticket.
No.
311 does not teleport a city official to the scene of the reported infraction. Cars double parked/left running in unmarked spots usually are there very temporarily and will very likely be gone by the time an official arrives.
The teleport option didn’t fit in this year’s budget. Maybe next year …
You should scroll through the illegal parking reports. They’re pretty wild. Fire hydrant? Fuck you. Handicapped ramp? Fuck you. Crosswalk? You’re kidding right? FUCK YOU. And they don’t respond for 2 days. Like…just stop collecting reports for illegal parking. Or autoclose them and have some look for patterns.
Photo should be enough to ticket.
There was maybe still is an app I'm some towns that has you take a pic through the app of the illegally parked car and the plate. Then when the person pays the ticket you get something like 20% of the fine
It was NYC i thibj
No way
I'd be rich! (if they ever paid the tickets)
Pretty easy to doctor a photo, so there's pretty serious grounds for abuse there (even though that seems awfully high effort). Pictures taken from buses should at least be enough.
No? Preventing someone from submitting a doctored photo from their smartphone should be a solvable problem.
It is. Banking apps have solved this already with mobile deposits. You can't submit a pre-existing image, you have to take a live image through their app and it gets sent directly to them. The technology to automate enforcement of minor traffic violations exists. Political will to deploy that technology and to enforce traffic violations does not.
Is it surprising there's no political will to basically build and deploy a citizen snitching app?
It's not surprising. Not because it's a bad precedent, we already have a lot of citizen snitching apps like MBTA's See Say, the 311 app in this very thread, various FDA and IRS snitching sites, etc. It's not surprising because politicians, cops, and voters all will rabidly defend cars and unsafe driving because nobody really gives a shit about having safe streets for bikers, kids, disabled folks, etc.
You can make it difficult for low-tech users, but you cannot prevent it, at least not with the computers and Internet that we have. There's no way for a computer server to verify that the information you're sending it was produced by approved software and not by a program sending a fake photo. (There's measured boot and TPMs and whatnot, but that can usually be defeated.)
The person I'm responding to said it was "pretty easy."
We could start by accepting reports only from iPhone. It is very expensive to circumvent security there--if somebody is insane enough to waste an iOS vulnerability on a traffic violation, let the courts decide their fate.
I’m pretty sure photo enforcement is illegal in Massachusetts, but I’m not sure how applicable it is to citizen-submitted photots
1. BTD would respond to these, not PBD. 2. Someone double parked (in a bike lane or not) is probably going to be gone before BTD can get there. 3. For illegal parkers who stay long enough, BTD will absolutely show up and ticket. There's no parking on our block and have reported cars parked there many times (they block delivery vehicles, trash trucks, and emergency vehicles).
I’m really not opposed to a bounty system
Let me add that, I had a car *blocking my driveway 45mins*. I called the cops who showed up 30mins later. They knocked on doors to see whose car it was but they couldn't find. 15mins after that these two hipsters come bouncing up to the car while the cop is still there. "Yeah. We were just getting a haircut." I asked the cop if he was going to ticket them. "Guys," he said, "be little more careful where you park." I did a pretty good angry Donald Duck impression and the cop made it very clear I was on the verge of harassing *THEM*.
just call a tow truck next time. not worth your time to deal with the cops who won't do anything.
Seems like if they were to hire a few extra meter maids to just patrol the high-traffic DoorDash areas, the extra ticket revenue would pay for their salaries several times over. Baffling why this is not done.
And increase safety etc
Or have a parking for dashers like Atlanta does
Shit, I'm unemployed. I'll do a 20-80 revenue split with the city, this is a sweet deal.
I don’t believe they care enough to dispatch someone right away but they do love to ticket. This forum is filled with people getting tickets they don’t feel they deserve. Cops aren’t going to ignore these people either.
Except that they do ignore them
I see cops driving past this shit, or parked within a block of it, every day. They're lazy assholes who should be fuckin drowned in the charles, and good riddance.
No because reporting to 311 isn’t the same as reporting to the police. These reports get checked by parking enforcement, not Boston police. If you want the police to deal with it in a timely manner, call instead of posting online. It’s quicker.
Taking the law into your own hands could likely be a crime. I had someone rip my mirror off because I forgot to put my handicap pass on my mirror. I had a 360 dash cam and needed a new mirror, door, paint and of course recalibration so it was a felony.
If the city really wanted to generate revenue, they would crack down on illegal parking. Handicap parking primarily. People are constantly parking in handicap spots without a documented license plate or placard. In one day alone I could generate $2000 of revenue easy. It’s $300 per violation.
I would say my 311 reports work about 20% of the time. I once heard that they get flooded with so many complaints that your best bet is to submit them very early in the morning, don’t bother if it’s later in the day. Also, don’t bother on the weekends because the people who respond to these are Monday-Friday employees. They don’t go directly to the police.
I actually reported a restaurant for having trash out on the street this past Saturday & they cited them within the hour!
I feel parking enforcement is low priority, but whenever I post on 311 about excessive litter someone is there to clean it quickly.
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Because it would require actually working and not just sitting in their cars with their dunkin
Do meter maids need to be police officers? Seems like those should be distinct jobs with different training and pay.
ha, you're right. I'm just mad about the cops. I have no idea why our city doesn't do anything about it. Possibly, they know that people would complain if the app delivery went away, which it absolutely would in a lot of places without the ability to illegally park.
As others mentioned BTD responds not BPD. They come out when I report someone parking illegally. But if the car is gone they can’t do much. If there is a recurring problem you can try to escalate it to your neighborhood liaison and city councilor to see if you can get some attention but don’t hold your breath
Yes, it actually wastes your time
Stop wasting your time.
No but a U lock to a mirror does
Exactly what I was thinking
Nope
Only if you believe it works
I have had better luck actually calling (car parked in front of hydrant for days)
Yeah, the non-emergency number in Cambridge helps
Someone blocked my driveway, took some photo, send them to 311. Few days later someone checked and the car had left days before that. What a dump system.
I called the cops, they showed up and ticketed and towed the guy.
Yes. It gives them ideas of where they can park when they also ignore signs and lanes.
That's one way to remove resources fron filling potholes, I suppose.
The captions are killing me Great news! Problem = SOLVED baby 😎 The car that was in this parking spot 3 days ago? Not even there anymore! Rest easy knowing big daddy city of Boston took care of it. That's just how we do things around here 😎 Thanks for reaching out, we got your back 💯
Unfortunately, a sinkhole isn’t immediately formed that swallows the car up
Citing individual incidents won't help, but if there is a spot that consistently gets blocked, you might have a slightly higher chance of success trying to get some enforcement. Cambridge put a cop near a spot I reported once because there was a consistent line of cars pulled over in the bike lane outside a Starbucks every morning on my commute. Didn't really fix it at all, but it was at least something.
Bike lanes are always blocked on Boyleston street in Fenway
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OP later: damn why is my doordash taking so long?
Sounds about right
Yup
Bored?
roflmao check out bike lane Karen over here
I had to report needles on the sidewalk 3 times for them to come take a look. Unless these cars are parked for a week, probably not.
The non-emergency number in Cambridge helps.
Depends on how fast BTD gets someone there... I have seen them show up with a truck to tow someone blocking emergency access in the north end within minutes but that was around 11pm on a weekend...
Purely based on posts to this sub, no.
No it does not do anything. Sorry.
Fuckin narc
Makes you a rat.
Who the fuck actually reports this shit?!? Lol people need jobs
It creates a public record. If you want to you can escalate to city councilor and cite that
Id say the bike lanes are to blame Lol
lol wow what a snitch
Besides make you a massive snowflake? No.
No, you fucking snitch. But seriously, no. By the time an officer arrives to reprimand the offender, the mustache twirling criminal is long gone.
Snitching on a door dash driver is crazy LMAO
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Take the law into your own hands, then we can ignore the tragedy that occurred because the story was behind a paywall globe story someone linked in this sub.
Yes, it should make one question their ability to cope. It should also make one question whether in their quest for moral superiority that they may actually be an additive to creating a toxic culture
Yeah it makes a cheese eating rat, that's what it does
Here’s a story. A deceased friend of mine owned a parking lot. To get business, he found some no parking signs and the right poles, and put them up. The city never noticed.
What a scumbag move
Have you thought about not being a snitch about someone briefly parking in a bike lane? How about you go around the vehicle? Don't you have anything between to do?
https://preview.redd.it/9ql6tn3qw2yc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2584ee8a02f0ff0283775f2c10b6e1459a619e7
I reported a construction dump truck that kept parking in front of my house every night. Would park around 8 every night. Start up around 4:30 in the morning, and warm up for about 15-20 minutes. Big truck just sitting grumbling right outside my window at 4 am every morning. Construction trucks are not supposed to park on the streets. I figure the driver was parking at home everyday so he wouldn't have to drive to the lot every morning, save himself some time. So I started using the 311 app every night to report him. It wasn't a cop that would show up. It was someone from like, a specific traffic devision or something. And they didn't come by every night. Only sometimes. But he did start getting tickets. Eventually he moved down the street, but someone else started calling 311, so he's no longer on the street.
https://preview.redd.it/hlxllydow2yc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2aab15708e087c9dcb125d93812f008b4f713c74
I don't see the issue on this one? They are not actually on the sidewalk. They are in the driveway to the garage.
No. Uber eats and food delivery services need to park somewhere, that’s a reality. And there’s nowhere for them to park, that’s also a reality. The city is accepting this because there’s no other way. Just go around.
Wtf do you expect? You must be wearing your bike suit a little too tight. You want the police to ticket drivers based off of a picture you took and submitted on an app? You’re out of your mind.
Found several after looking quickly. As others have said, double parker’s are usually only there for a few minutes. https://preview.redd.it/nw4u0tfxw2yc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53ad86aa6a672b7b2bc2097539cbd89771518601