No parking anytime?: Taunton City Council to address Bay Street danger, concerns

The problem of on-street parking on one of the city’s more dangerous stretches of road will, once again, come before the City Council.

A letter written by a Bay Street resident in this week’s agenda packet urges that parking officially be banned from the west side of the street outside of Watson Pond State Park.

There is no room to park on the street’s east side.

Councilors this summer have been grappling with whether to ban parking

outright or to ask the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state agency that manages the property, to consider reducing the $5 fee to park on the premises.

Residents and officials, meanwhile, have said it’s only a matter of time before an adult or child is injured or killed getting out of or into a vehicle parked in what amounts to no more than a narrow breakdown lane.

It’s been noted that many people prefer parking on the street to avoid paying the entrance fee, and that the breakdown lane typically becomes filled well before the designated parking areas within the park are fully utilized.

A petition signed by residents of single-family homes, located just north of the park, as well as residents across the street in Land’s End at Sabbatia condo complex, was submitted and addressed to the Council and Mayor Charles Crowley in July.

That document urged city officials to replace signs now posted near the park’s entrance limiting on-street parking to daylight hours with new ones stating “No Parking Anytime.”

Resident wants action taken

One of those petitioners, Doris Tokarz, of 1714 Bay St., hand-wrote the four-page letter to the Council.

Tokarz, 80, said it’s time that the city take action and post no-parking signs all along the west side of the street, including in front of the house where she has lived since 1955.

 Tokarz said she’s been paying a steep personal price as a result of the sometimes inconsiderate behavior of people parking in front of her house, on those days when on-street parking extends well beyond the vicinity of the park’s entrance.

Those daytime visitors, she said, often leave her front lawn littered with empty drink containers and other refuse.

“Every Monday morning I have to go out and pick up other people’s trash,” Tokarz said.

She recalled an incident from a few weeks ago, during a heat spell, when a woman with five children, who was preparing to leave, placed a cooler on her lawn and then deposited large drink cups under her tree.

“I said, ‘I think you forgot something, I’m not here to pick up your trash,’” Tokarz said.

The woman, she said, responded by moving the cups to the sidewalk and laughed at her as she drove off with her kids.

Tokarz says she’s also been subject to unpleasant and sometimes intimidating exchanges with young to middle-aged men, whom she has deterred from using her semi-circle, front-door driveway for an impromptu U-turn.

It’s gotten so bad that she’s draped a chain across the north entrance. She uses the south entrance to drive her car on and off her property, but blocks it off with a pair of orange construction cones on busy weekends.

On at least one occasion a cone has either been moved or stolen. She also says yard ornaments near her front door have been stolen.

After-hours trespassing

Tokarz also says it’s not unusual, on weekend days when hot weather draws crowds to the park, to find un-ticketed vehicles parked in front of a fire hydrant just past her property and in front of the state-run land.

In the event of a fire, she notes, fire department responders would be impeded.

She’s also concerned — especially since a 17-year-old boy was struck and killed at night earlier this month by a hit-and-run driver, while on his skateboard in the middle of Bay Street — about kids who sometimes go into the park after hours.

But Tokarz said she has hesitated to complain to police out of fear of retribution.

“I don’t know what kind of kids they are,” she said.

And Tokarz said it’s not just teens who use the Watson Park after hours. She said she’s witnessed adults drop off coolers in their vehicles when the park has closed, only to return to the park by gingerly stepping over a low picket fence.

Watson Pond State Park has steadily become a destination since 2006 when the Department of Conservation and Recreation re-opened the beach after years of closure due to water-purity concerns.

Within the next two years other improvements, including a playground, cooking grills and picnic tables, were added.

S.J. Port, spokeswoman for DCR, said it’s illegal for anyone to re-enter the park after 6 p.m. She said the state urges anyone observing trespassing incidences to call both state police and environmental police authorities.

Taunton Police Chief Edward Walsh said he has advised city councilors in the past to reverse an earlier decision allowing daylight parking near the park’s entrance.

“I don’t think there should be parking on Bay Street,” Walsh said Monday.

Talk to DCR

Some city councilors have noted that many people parking on the street are only trying to save money in a tough economy.

Councilman A.J. Marshall said it’s worth consulting with DCR officials to consider either reducing the $5 parking fee or eliminating it altogether.

Council President Sherry Costa Hanlon doubts DCR will agree to a fee elimination for Watson Park, because, “If they do it here they have to do it everywhere.”

Costa Hanlon said the “No Parking from Dusk to Dawn” signs were installed a few years ago, when former police chief Raymond O’Berg and the Police and License Committee agreed that it was a reasonable compromise.

But DCR officials, she recalls, opposed the measure.

Tokarz says she’s never seen a secondary parking area within the park being used — further indication that people simply choose parking on a dangerous, winding road instead of coughing up five bucks.

“I know it’s been hot this summer, but why do I have to pay for it?” she said.