Chelsea’s Traffic and Parking Commission turned down three residents’ requests for handicap parking signs at its September 2 meeting, citing a limit it said it had only recently found in the city’s residential parking regulations. Commission members said the rule caps handicap spaces at 2 percent within a given area, and that any application in an area already at the limit will be denied, however strong the need.
“What we found out over the summer in reading into the regulations for the residential parking program is that we can’t allow more than 2% handicap spots in a 2,000 square foot parking zone,” a commission member told the first applicant turned away. “It’s not something we did last year or the year before, but it’s we’re going to start looking into more closely.”
The same member explained the rule this way: “For every 50 cars, we can only allow up to two handicap spots.” Two spaces out of 50 is 4 percent, not 2, and 2,000 square feet is an area about 45 feet on a side. The regulation’s text was not read into the record, and we have not been able to locate it, so which figure governs is an open question.
Seven applications, three denials
Seven handicap sign applications were on the agenda. Three were approved, on Addison Street, Maple Street and Crescent Avenue, where commission members said there were few or no other signs nearby. Three were denied, on Grove Street, Reynolds Avenue and Cottage Street, because signs already stood within the area. One, on Essex Street, was tabled after members could not agree whether the city’s list of existing signs matched what was actually on the street.
The applicants described injuries, surgeries and, in several cases, children with disabilities they have to get from the car to the door. Commission members said repeatedly that the denials did not reflect doubt about their need. “We believe you. It has nothing to do with that,” one member told a Cottage Street applicant who offered doctors’ letters. “Unfortunately, it just has to do with our regulations for the residential handicap sign.”
A Reynolds Avenue applicant, walking with a cane after surgery on a fractured foot, came to ask the commission to shorten the wait for signs. “Accessibility should not arrive eventually,” the applicant said. “It should arrive when people need it.” The application was denied because a sign already stands on Reynolds Avenue and another on nearby Bassett Street.
“It’s not assigned to a specific person”
Two applicants said neighbors with signs outside their homes had told them to move when they parked there. Commission members said every handicap space is open to anyone with a placard, first come, first served. “You’re allowed to park in any handicap spot with that placard. It’s not assigned to a specific person,” one said, and told applicants to call the police if anyone gives them trouble. Staff said they would send letters to sign holders on the affected streets saying the same thing, and would follow up on a report that neighbors were passing placards between cars.
One commission member asked that the 2 percent rule and a list of existing handicap sign locations be posted on the city’s parking web page so applicants know before they apply. No one at the meeting could say who would do that.
Councillor Giovanni Recupero raised the same tension from the other side during public comment. Residents tell him some streets have four handicap signs in a row, he said, and that people with signs treat the spaces as their own. “You petition to get it, but it doesn’t mean it’s yours,” he said. “Anybody with a placard can use it.” He said he supports the signs.
Broadway plan approved
The commission also approved the downtown Broadway reconstruction plans, the traffic changes that later went to the Planning Board and that we described in What Is Actually Being Built on Broadway. The vote covered two-way traffic on Broadway in front of City Hall, back-in parking along Washington Avenue beside City Hall, narrowing City Hall Avenue to one lane, and full traffic signals at Bellingham Square and at Third Street. The motion also lets Housing and Community Development and the Department of Public Works make minor changes during construction.
Public Works Commissioner Cate Fox-Lent, who presented the plan, said the design is complete, bidding is expected in December, and construction would start in the spring and take up to two years. Fox-Lent described the state funding as “somewhere in the ballpark of an 11 million investment by the state.” That is a fourth figure on the record for the same project: Ben Cares of Housing and Community Development told the Planning Board on September 22 it was “upwards of $13 million,” and the city manager’s letter to the council says “more than $14 million in federal investment.” We have not been able to reconcile them.
A fire department member of the commission said the turn from Central Station onto Chestnut Street looked tight for a 45-foot ladder truck. Fox-Lent said the design had already been adjusted to ease that turn.
Pedestrians struck across from City Hall
The first speaker in the commission’s new public comment period, a city councillor, said three pedestrians have been hit at Marlborough Street, Shurtleff Street and Broadway since the commission’s last meeting, one on June 7 and two on August 22. The intersection was identified last year as one of the most dangerous in the city, in the top 5 percent for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, and flexible barriers were planned, according to the councillor. The only change since January has been new paint, the councillor said; the barriers have been ordered but not installed. The councillor asked whether they would arrive before the Broadway surface work begins next year.
Other business
- Councillor Recupero’s request for flashing stop signs was denied. The agenda listed Congress Avenue at Highland Street; Recupero said that was written up wrong and that he wants signs where Maverick Street and Essex Street meet Highland. He was asked to resubmit.
- Recupero also asked about construction vehicles left on city streets, saying an order he introduced years ago calls for any vehicle on wheels to be moved off the street.
- A request for a speed hump on Pine Street was tabled again while staff look at alternatives.
- A request for speed measures on Lafayette Avenue near the hill at Warren Avenue was rejected, with staff to look at the area internally. The resident who asked did not attend.
- An MBTA plan to lengthen the bus stop under the Tobin Bridge on Third Street at Chestnut Street and add a third berth was tabled to October.
- The Walnut Street Synagogue’s yearly request for parking relief during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur was approved.
- An appeal of a revoked resident parking permit was tabled. Members asked the parking department to send a written recommendation with the backup documents for future appeals.
Update, September 28, 2026: The Cottage Street applicant previously had a handicap sign on that street. According to the commission’s report in the City Council’s June 8 packet, the commission voted at its May 5 meeting to remove a handicap sign on Cottage Street because the placard on file had expired. At the September 2 meeting, the applicant said no notice of the removal ever arrived; commission staff said notices had been sent to the address more than once.