by Robert Gillis
Published in the Foxboro Reporter 1/2009 and as a letter to the editor in the Sharon Advocate

This isn’t a Foxboro issue but will affect a lot of people in Foxboro, Mansfield and Walpole.

This morning I drove as usual to the Sharon MBTA Commuter station and parked in the numbered spot area where I usually park -- on the train station side. The “residents only” lot allows 30 additional spaces for non-residents, which is very nice.

I proceeded to the pay box to insert my $4.00. That’s when I noticed the duct tape covering the slots of parking spots 45-78. The magic marker sticker said that that these spots are for residents only. This was a new development, effective today.

I understand that the land is owned by the town of Sharon and not the MBTA, and the town can do whatever it wants, and the needs of the residents come first. I get it.

But there are precious few parking spaces for non-residents, and now over 30 of them are gone. For many people like me who live in neighboring towns, that means a ride to Route 128, a long ride on a clear day and a nightmare on a snow day.

The woman I spoke with at Sharon Public Works was curt with me, and to be honest didn’t seem to care about my call.

It just isn’t fair. That lot is simply NEVER full. I’m there every day. There are ALWAYS dozens of resident-only parking spaces available. Even if more passes for residents were sold, there are always resident-only spots available.

Forcing neighboring residents to seek a far-off alternate station for parking is not just unneighborly, it’s wrong.

I would really hope that the town of Sharon would revaluate this change. There’s always plenty of resident parking in that lot (even after 10am) and it seems like the town is doing this to add more to its coffers by writing more $25 parking tickets to non-residents who HAVE to park there.

If you park at Sharon and are not a resident, please give the Sharon Public Works department a call at 781-784-1525. Or email superintendent Ed Hooper at ehooper@townofsharon.org or business manager Liz Curley at ecurley@townofsharon.org.

Be polite, don’t be rude, but express your opinion about this change and perhaps we can get our parking spaces back.