The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 21

NOVEMBER 12, 2000 The Boston Sunday Globe South Weekly 7 Parking crunch frustrates rail commuters if, dm- mm dd an Oasis Patio TS5frfr5T urnn Call us for a free design consultation and see how a custom Oasis Patio Room can enhance the value of your homel Family Owned Operated Since 1957 The parking lot at the Mansfield commuter rail station is jammed with cars early in the day. 'V4NS COMPANY GLOBE STAFF PHOTOFRANK O'BRIEN tag enforcement officer, who said he writes 15 to 25 tickets a day on average. "And I ticket the same cars every day, so some people are spending $300 a month on tickets," he said. "Either they're wealthy or getting subsidized for parking where they work" and just write the tickets off as a business expense. PARKING Continued from Page 1 supposed to do?" While the parking shortage is especially acute in Mansfield, it is a familiar lament over at the Old Colony commuter rail line of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority as well, and there are no plans for expanding lots there.

Of more than a dozen stops on Old Colony's Middleborough-Lakeville and KingstonPlymouth lines, only five have vacant spaces after rush hour, said Joseph Pesaturo, spokesman. The stations that typically have spaces left are: Halifax, 50; Kingston, 130; Plymouth, 95; Montello (Brockton), 130; and Campello (Brockton), 265. It typically costs $1 a day to park at these lots. On the Providence-to-Boston line, which goes through Mansfield, a new garage on Route 128 in Dedham is drastically underused with an average of only 620 cars a day parked there, Pesaturo said. That garage, a combined project of the MBTA and Amtrak, should see increased use once the regular service of the high-speed Acela train is underway.

It is scheduled to begin Thursday. On the Old Colony line, there are no plans to expand parking, Pesaturo said. But there has been recent expansion in Halifax, where 150 more spaces were created, and MiddleboroughLake-ville, where 215 were added Monday. That added space came none too soon: Up to two dozen cars a day were being towed from the side of the access road leading to the lot, a local tow operator said. Officials at Canpro Investment Ltd.

of Lakeville, which owns the access road, said there are warning signs at the side of the road and that in the week before towing began, they had put warning fliers on cars parked there. While there are no plans to expand lots on the Old Colony routes, relief will come when the much-awaited Greenbush (Sci-tuate) line opens and adds 2,900 spaces to the mix, Pesaturo said. But that could be years away, since the controversial line is still in the environmental planning stage. It had met fierce opposition, especially in Hingham, where an agreement was finally worked out to tunnel under the downtown, Pesaturo said. In addition, he said, plans are in the works to extend the Old Colony line to Fall River and New Bedford, which should ease the Another qreat reason to be a Globe subscriber! Che aioaton iPlobe jgl.f$f3&XtYU www.boston.comqlobextra 0 at Faxon Woods Cordially invites the public to attend parking crunch up the line.

But in the meantime, parking remains a crap shoot, and Pesaturo said the advises motorists to carpool or take a bus to the stations. At the Braintree parking garage, all 1,300 spaces are full by 7:15 a.m., said Mohammad Qureshi, manager of Allright Central Parking, which manages all commuter rail lots. Asked if he sees irate drivers who cannot find a parking space, Qureshi laughed. "All the time. You just try to be calm with them.

Most of the people who park here know to get here early." Meanwhile, Mansfield resident Helen Finklestein, a Boston claims examiner who has a resident sticker, said if she's not at the Mansfield resident lot by 7:15, "I'm stuck. If I want to get to the city by 9, 1 have to get here before 7" for the 45-minute train ride. One alternative to parking in the lot or avoiding a ticket when parking on Mansfield streets is to cozy up to a nearby resident or business and work a deal with them, some commuters said. One hurried man on a recent morning said he'd done just that, though he would not say whether it was a resident or business he was paying for the right to park, nor would he give his name or how much he paid. "I dont want to say any more," he said before rushing to the station to catch the 8:07 train.

"I dont want to screw up my deal." Cutting no deals is William Sarro, owner of a shopping plaza a block from the station and who OPENING CELEBRATION THE GRAND i 1 XT 1 1 .1 rr I JNovember lth am i iovemDer LDin nr .1. .11.. YtJUpm state-or-me art assisted living residence devoted to lour mis ALZHEIMER'S runs Dub's Discount Liquor. His son, William, runs a fish market next to the liquor store and said he gets to work at 6 a.m. every day not only to accept delivery of the day's catch, but to shoo away commuters trying to park.

"I toss eight to 10 people a day out of here," the younger Sarro said. "You cant believe it, Tve had some people actually cry on me. "Parking has been a problem for the last three to five years, but now if really awful," he said. During the holiday season, his 128-parking lot fills up quickly in the plaza, which also contains a chain drug store and a restaurant To some, taking a $15 hit for illegally parking on the street is a bargain compared with the $20 or more it costs to park in Boston for the day, not to mention the aggravation of driving to the city. Mansfield's town manager, John D'Agostino, said one motorist recently went to Town Hall to pay $1,100 worth of parking tickets.

"She said she knew she was wrong," D'Agostino said. "But she said it's still easier than parking in Boston." Once the new station is built, it could bring more woes, with 1,700 commuters spilling out on Mansfield roads at the end of the workday. As it is, the town budgets $18,000 a year for police details to direct traffic at the station in the afternoon, a figure that appears to be headed for red ink: The town already has spent more than $9,000 on details this fiscal year, which began July 1. Helping to recover that money is Dick Paulson, the town's park- Caren Bonner, RN Maternity Nurse Manager MEMORY IMPAIRED CARE A FEATURED GUEST SPEAKERS: Dr. Paul Raia, Alzheimer's Assoc.

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