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HAVERHILL'S
FUTURE
Leadership Needed in Parking Crisis
Jim Rurak, Former Haverhill Mayor
(03/06/07)
 The
mayor canceled last Thursday’s public meeting on
where to put the downtown parking garage.
His aide said that they needed more time to respond to a
growing set of concerns that a five-story structure on
the Ted’s for Tires lot would be downright ugly.
They can take all the time they want, but unless they
make it invisible, the massive garage will be ugly as
sin. It will spoil the ambience of the district it is
supposed to serve. It will be taller than any of the
beautiful buildings around it. Its ugliness will be
matched only by the vast shadow it will cast over the
streets and square beside it.
The mayor’s in a real bind. His repeated failures to
win approval of a parking plan means that he must now
race to get that plan approved and begin to build a
garage.
Otherwise, the grant monies for the garage could be lost.
He also needs to do something before the election. But
now that his favorite site is controversial, he seems to
face the choice between building an ugly garage or losing
a lot of votes.
So what do we do?
As I understand it, the federal and state grants require
that we construct parking facilities that serve more than
just automobiles. The Ted’s site works because it’s
close to the railroad station and we plan to move the bus
station there. Bingo, it’s cars, buses and trains,
or “multimodal” as planners call it. But a
five-story structure is just so ugly. Some, therefore,
want to put the massive structure on the other side of
the tracks, on the way to Lafayette Square. That works
theoretically, but it’s too far away from the
businesses and residences it’s supposed to serve.
To get beyond this impasse, we need to think outside the
big-box approach to parking in which both sides of the
above impasse seem to be stuck. We need at least to talk
about an approach Lou Fossarelli proposed a short while
ago.
Lou wanted to buy air-rights over the Wingate Street lot,
build a one-story garage, sell the lots upstairs to condo
owners, improve the downstairs (the existing Wingate
lot), and then give it back to the city. It’s a
classic public-private partnership that might work. But
that’s not my point just yet. I want to talk about
the one-story design.
Go to the Ted’s site. Imagine a one-story platform
at the same level as the railroad station and tracks.
Imagine it covering the existing lot and the other
private lots that form the whole site where they want to
put the massive garage. The bus station could be down
below as well as perhaps 60 spaces. Eighty more spaces
could be added on the upper level. You gain a lot fewer
spaces, but you actually beautify the area.
Now, to get all the extra spaces that downtown needs you
repeat the magic. Stand on the corner at Mark’s
Deli. The road down to the parking lot behind the Lasting
Room and Tap is steep. If we put the Riverwalk down
below, it will not be handicap accessible by foot.
Furthermore, driving up that ramp onto Washington Street
is dangerous to cars and people. Imagine a level platform
that goes out from the top of the ramp over the existing
lot. The ramp down to the lower lot could be down by the
river, so could a wheelchair ramp that made the Riverwalk
accessible. This is multimodal too! Cars, bikes,
wheelchairs and pedestrians all can use it. It makes the
Riverwalk accessible. It improves public safety.
Now, imagine other sites throughout the downtown, perhaps
behind Casey paper, perhaps at Locust and Essex, perhaps
behind Haverhill Beef.
We could get all the extra spaces we know we need and we
could distribute them to places where we most need them.
One-story decks go up fast, they blend into, rather than
destroy, the atmosphere around them. They are easier to
maintain. Every place we put one between
Washington/Merrimack Streets and the seawall could be an
entry to our envisioned Riverwalk, so they are
multi-transportation oriented. If there is a site that
doesn’t by itself meet that test, we could argue
that it is part of an overall plan that makes more types
of transit accessible to more people over the whole of
the city.
Multiple sites for one-story decks make for a simple
idea. Let’s at least start talking about it, before
we’re all staring at a massive structure nobody
likes.
Jim Rurak is a professor at Boston College
and is the former mayor of Haverhill. Email your comments
or questions to Jim Rurak at JARandKAS@comcast.net.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The March 2007 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
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All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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