The Holiday Shopping Guide
Park Life
Fork out for the garage, or take your chances by the curb? Avoid the gamble with our handy tip sheet for finding a spot wherever you are.
By Jason Schwartz, Illustration by Joe McKendry
|
| Back Bay
| Beacon Hill
| North End
| Coolidge Corner
| Wellesley Center
|
| Street Spaces | About 1,200 | 980 | 1,080 | 650 | 254 |
| One Quarter Gets You | 15 minutes | 15 minutes | 15 minutes | 20 minutes | One hour |
| Watch Out For | $45 fine for double-parking | $75 for no-stopping/standing violations | 40 fine for parking in resident-only spaces | $25 meter violation (Brookline meter maids are notoriously omnipresent) | $150 fine for parking in a handicapped space |
| Cheap Garage | Central Parking (1085 Boylston St.): $5 per half-hour, up to 90 minutes; $17 daily fee after that | Charles Street Parking Garage (144 Charles St.): $10 first hour; $15 two to three hours; $19 five to seven hours | FAL Limited Parking (34 Cooper St.): $10 daily; $15 nights and weekends | There’s only one—the Harvard Parking Associates garage—and only bother if you’re looking for overnight parking ($28). | No garages here, but at $2.50 a day the least expensive street parking is alongside the library in the Cameron Street lot, off Washington Street. |
| Best Bet for Street Parking | Head for the Newbury Street extension, off Massachusetts Avenue and adjacent to the Pike on-ramp. A lot of people don’t know it exists, so open spaces are more abundant. | Finding on-street parking here is tougher than finding an honest politician—head straight for the subterranean (and giant) Boston Common Garage near Charles and Beacon streets. | Try Fleet Street. Past that, says one former North End resident, “sell your car—it’s violent.” | Use the lot behind Boca Grande taqueria (1294 Beacon St.). Bonus: easy burrito access. | While the Cameron lot may be cheapest, the Tailby lot on Linden and Crest has nearly 70 more spaces. It’s two bucks more, but also your best bet. |
Parallel University:
Self-Parking Cars Earn Above-Average Marks as Holiday Helpers
Only one thing can eliminate the agony of parallel parking, and that’s a car that can be driven sideways. Until it’s developed, we’re left with the Infiniti EX35’s new 360-degree cameras and the Lexus LS 460’s self-parking mode. We tested both.
1. With a few button pushes, the Lexus really did park itself—although it worked only in roomy spots I could have conquered easily on my own.
2. The Infiniti was more helpful: Its AroundView monitor system produced a bird’s-eye view of the car’s immediate surroundings, making parking feel like a video game. Still, I was a better (and faster) parker when using more-familiar features: a craned neck and my own eyes. —Jason Feifer
For two ways to give back this holiday season, go on to the next page...
Posted by CulturalSurvivalBazaar | Nov. 14, 2008 at 1:32 PM