Parking Enforcement
Enforcement is key for increasing street safety, addressing roadway congestion, improving parking, and keeping our streets clean.
Parking Enforcement Officers in the Transportation Department issue parking violations to keep our streets safe, accessible and clean for all roadway users, keep traffic flowing, and keep bus and bike lanes clear and accessible for tens of thousands of people using them every day.
Our officers patrol their routes in multiple shifts throughout the day. We prioritize enforcement of safety violations, such as blocking roadways, crosswalks, pedestrian ramps, bike lanes or fire hydrants.
Dashboard
Our Parking Enforcement data dashboard shows violations issued in Boston over the last year. Information on patterns of reported and past violations helps guide our enforcement efforts.
How to Report Illegal Parking
The best way to report parking issues is Boston 311, the City’s free service for non-emergency help and information.
The Boston 311 app helps residents and visitors improve City neighborhoods. The data from 311 reports informs our planning and decision-making about enforcement.
Because officers are assigned to patrol specific routes and prioritize safety violations, we are often not able to respond to every 311 report about illegal parking in real time. Often, this illegal parking behavior is short-lived, and the violator may be gone by the time an officer responds to the scene. However, 311 reports help us better understand where enforcement is needed and plan our routes based on the data.
OTHER TOOLS
Enforcement is just one tool the City uses to manage parking. Through better curb management, we are working to increase mobility and safety and continue to evaluate parking regulations. For example, frequent double parking in a crosswalk, bus lane, or bike lane may indicate that more enforcement is needed.
Boston is the only municipality in Massachusetts that does not currently have legal authority for automated parking enforcement. We are working with our state partners to add automated enforcement tools to our toolbox. This would allow our team to monitor the curb and issue violations more efficiently.
