Boston’s Chinatown has always been a crowded community with a small number of residential parking spaces and a large number of residents with cars.
Now the parking problem has been made worse — and more costly — by a string of construction projects and parking restrictions that have made it impossible for some residents to park after a long day’s work.
“Sometimes it takes me more than an hour to find a parking space,” said Kang Qiang Mai, an Uber driver from Chinatown. “Now, the streets that allow residents to park (except for street cleaning) are full of construction sites, making things worse.”
It’s not just the construction sites. High concentrations of parking restrictions and more vehicles in their neighborhood are making parking a nightmare for residents.
“It has become harder to find a parking space ever since the south parking lot of Tai Tung Village [apartment building] was removed,” said Phoenix Chen, who lives there. “Sometimes I have to find a parking space from the afternoon until the evening.”
She said she has had to put her children in the back seat of her car and drive around Chinatown for hours in a desperate attempt to find on-street parking.
Chinatown residents are increasingly reliant on their cars for work. In decades past, residents said their path to upward mobility meant long hours in the hot kitchen of a restaurant. But now, many people raising their families rely on their cars to work as Uber, Lyft, or other transportation drivers. The car is their livelihood.
Parking restrictions around Tufts Medical Center and at numerous construction sites are increasingly problematic. It got so bad that residents approached Boston City Council President Ed Flynn to do something to ease the parking issue.
“It didn’t work,’’ said Bosco Ma [CQ], another Chinatown resident.
Flynn said he received some concerns from Chinatown residents regarding the scarcity of residential parking spaces.
“This is an issue that affects a number of neighborhoods in my District and although each neighborhood’s constraints are unique,” said Flynn. “This is an issue I am focused on to figure out long-term solutions.”
In the meantime, residents must contend with limited parking, including around construction sites. One of those sites is a six-story building rising on 288 Harrison Ave. The building not only takes up a whole parking lot of the Tai Tung Village apartment building but also occupies dozens of parking places on Hudson Street, where residents could park all day.
Construction on the building — being developed by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New England and Beacon Communities LLC — began in December.
A notice in English was attached to the construction site’s fence, barring daily parking from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Harrison Avenue from Jan. 23 through Feb. 21. Hudson Street was also surrounded by orange plastic barricades that occupy parking spaces.
But even after the restrictions were lifted, many Chinatown residents who do not speak English only recognized “No Parking,’’ and thought they could not park there.
Ma said he had to remove the notice and orange barriers himself late last month. Now, residents can park there.
The parking problem persists on nearby Marginal Road, which is surrounded by Washington Street and Harrison Avenue. Residents used to park there easily, but no longer due to the construction of the Josiah Quincy Upper School.
“I’m afraid those spaces are gone forever,” said Ma.
Smaller renovations have also been a problem in the neighborhood. On Tyler Street, two huge iron boxes filled with gravel and stones sat in spaces where people parked.
Ma said the permit initially allowed five parking spaces to be taken up for the renovations, but that was narrowed to two. It’s a problem he sees all over the neighborhood, such as on Albany Street where four parking spots are being used for renovations.
“I think it infringes on the rights of all residents of Chinatown,” he said.
Chinatown residents can apply for free residential parking permits at City Hall. But since those parking spaces are limited, residents now must resort to using meters.
However, residents must move their cars before 8 a.m. or they will be ticketed. Ma said residents can rent a parking garage for $400-500 monthly but it is a heavy financial burden for many working families.
Flynn and the city’s Chinatown liaison Chulan Huang met with frustrated residents about the parking issue on March 1. Flynn proposed changing the bike lanes in Chinatown and the side of Marginal Road without a parking timer into the resident parking space.
“Most of the bike lanes sit on Kneeland Street, which has a huge amount of traffic,” said both Ma and Chen, “while Marginal Road is for school bus parking.”
Flynn, who said his office is actively working with the city to identify possible parking spaces. Officials hope Boston’s Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge will consider options.
This story was published as part of a collaboration with Boston University’s School of Journalism in the College of Communication and former Boston Globe reporter Meghan Irons.
