Interesting Op-ed piece in the Boston Globe October 23^rd by Paul McMorrow talking about the changing requirements for parking in Boston, more specifically in the Seaport District.  Basically, Paul is saying the BRA is moving more to a concept of a maximum allotment for parking for new developments rather than a minimum.  This is supposedly due to the changing commuting dynamics with employees living closer to work (and, therefore, not as dependent on the automobile.)

Parking in the Seaport

More interesting is that as the Seaport is developed, using primarily Joe Fallon’s and John Hynes’ surface parking sites, there will be less and less space available for the drivers currently using these lots.  And who are these people and where do they work?  Well, if you look over to the Financial District what you will see is a densely built office environment without much parking.  There is a parking freeze in that district which the city insists is working very well – a model for the Seaport parking freeze, as a matter of fact.

The problem is that the freeze works in the Financial District because of the availability of so much low cost parking in the Seaport.  So, when that inventory of “cheap” long term parking disappears, the businesses in the Financial District will have a problem on their hands as their employees jockey for the remaining handful of parking spots. That is, unless there is a massive investment in mass transit over the decade.  I leave you to contemplate the chances of that! (Leave your prognostications in a comment, below)