And it is my personal belief that those people should park outside the city and ride a form of HOV in, bus/train etc. There are limited reasons one NEEDS to bring in a vehicle into downtown Boston and I believe the current parking supply more than covers those situations. Parking in central core downtown in uneccessary.
Also for this parking deck in particular I take massive issue with the fact the entrance/exit is onto Atlantic Ave, cutting directly across ab immensely pedestrian dense sidewalk. They should have stuck with the one entry by the bus terminal offramp.
HeBos -- You obviously are not familiar with any of Greater Boston outside of what you can reach by walking to/from a downtown T station
The reality is that the
Greater of Greater Boston [i.e. Boston CSA]*1 extends in some directions:
- up to 100 miles from the State House
- North East up toward Portland Maine
- South and West into Rhode Island and even Connecticut
- North past Manchester in NH
- as well as a solid 50 plus miles directly back toward Springfield via Worcester
The vast majority of the approximately 8 Million people in the Boston CSA do not have access to any reasonable form of transportation except a personal vehicle to take them to Boston -- without a whole lot of inconvenience or expense
Despite your fondest wishes -- you just can not expect someone coming to Boston from the hinterlands with say their elderly relative or mobility impaired spouse, etc., to park way out somewhere and take the T let alone the Commuter Rail -- they just are not going to do that -- they need to be able to park a short distance from the final destination possibly carrying a wheel chair, a walker, and or oxygen tank in the trunk
At the Museum of Science where I volunteer we get visitors with these kinds of support services all of the time -- we even provide assisted mobility when needed by a visitor who arrives to the MOS and needs a electric wheeled chair to navigate the exhibit halls
Thus even if you drastically reduced the hundreds of thousands of commuters who drive to a small number -- there will always be others visiting Boston's cultural, educational or medical complexes who will drive and need parking
*1
Combined Statistical Area -- with a
population of 8,285,407 more than MA & NH combined