Boston: A city with a never-ending stream of charming quirks, which all too often make day-to-day activities, like parking, even more difficult than they have to be. The Hub’s parking landscape, which is, perhaps, more congested than it has ever been, is not only a hassle to maneuver – it’s dominated by hundreds of residents who own multiple cars.

There are 96,000 Boston parking permits in circulation in 2015, an increase of 25 percent since 2006 the Boston Globe reports. Part of the reason that total has steadily increased is because Boston, unlike other major cities, offers residents a free parking permit for every single car he or she owns.

While most Boston households have only been issued one permit, the Globe reports that 300 possess five or more. “The permit system is broken from top to bottom,” Tufts University’s Mark Chase told the Globe. “By issuing an unlimited number of parking permits for free, you are not managing the parking. It creates scarcity.”

However, Boston Transportation Department deputy commissioner James Gillooly suggested the permit system isn’t going to overhauled any time soon. “We haven’t reached the point where we think we should be rationing spaces,” Gillooly told the Globe. (Somerville and Cambridge both offer unlimited parking permits, too. But, unlike Boston, both Somerville and Cambridge annually charge residents $30 and $25 extra – respectively – additional permits. Gillooly said there are no plans for Boston to start doing the same.)

To give readers a sense of just how limited the city’s supply of available on-street parking spaces is, the Globe put the North End in the spotlight. There, in Boston’s oldest residential neighborhood, one neighborhood group estimates that there are only 1,500 spaces for 4,000 permits.

Another issue with Boston’s parking permit system could be the city’s inability to keep up-to-date tabs on the number of permits issued to residents who have since moved out of the city. According to the Globe, the city rarely checks when residents move to other cities and towns; which means, since parking permits are good for two years, a Somerville resident, for example, could possess and take advantage of a Boston permit.

So, yes, parking in Boston is still a mess.

During his State of the City address, Mayor Marty Walsh did stress the importance of fixing the city’s parking quagmire, pointing to innovations like ParkBoston, which allows car owners to feed the meter by phone. However, the fact that the deputy commissioner of Boston’s transportation department has stated, on the record, that the current permitting system will remain in place for an unknown amount of time, congestion and lack of parking supply could remain unsolved problems.

Here’s a look at how the number of parking permits breaks down by neighborhood, per a graphic included in the Globe report.
South Boston: 19,271
South End: 13,166
Brighton: 10,572
East Boston: 10,062
Charlestown: 7,048
Back Bay: 6,026
Dorchester: 4,507
Allston: 3,652
Beacon Hill: 3,590
Jamaica Plain: 3,583
Fenway/Kenmore: 3,193
North End: 2,954 (Lowered from 4,000 due to a number recently expired permits)
Mission Hill: 2,272
Roxbury: 881
Chinatown: 875
West Roxbury: 774
Bay Village: 492
Roslindale: 440
Leather District: 258
West End: 220
Hyde Park: 150

Photo via Achim Hepp