Dear Editor:
There is a serious problem in Hoboken that needs to be addressed. People are standing in parking spaces holding them for their family or friends who are not even in the vicinity of the space. In the meantime, people, including myself, are driving around between a half hour to two hours looking for a parking space and when they finally come across one, someone stands in it and tells the driver that he or she cannot park there because he or she is holding it for someone else.
After driving around all day or night looking for a space, people now have to argue with pedestrians just to park. As if finding parking in this town was not difficult enough, now we have to fight for it as well.
The problem is that this situation is getting out of hand. Drivers are bumping people with their cars to get them out of the space, physical harm is being threatened by the driver to the pedestrian, the pedestrian is threatening to violate the driver’s car, and this is going on day and night on a daily basis. I personally have experienced this problem more than once a day for the past two weeks and randomly for months now. A few nights ago, I drove around for and hour and fifteen minutes and finally found a space. A woman jumped in the space and told me she was holding it . My temper was high, but I chose not to fight this time. A few minutes later, I came across another space and a man stepped behind my car while I was backing up to state the same scenario. This time I argued. He refused to move and I had been driving around for almost and hour and a half only to experience this twice in one night. Needless to say, I became irate. I began screaming threats and profanity at the top of my lungs and received the same in return to no avail. He would not move. As I reached out to strike him, I stopped, and drove away angrily. It took me two hours and a serious argument just to find one parking space that night.
I have never raised my hand in anger towards anyone before, but after working all day and going to college at night, the last thing I want to do when I come home is fight with someone over a parking space. I did not hit that man, but someone else might have. Public parking is not a reserved privilege, it is a first come first serve activity. This space saving situation is not right and it has to stop. How much longer can this last before people start becoming violent? If someone like myself can become angry enough to think about resorting to violence, how many others do you think will follow through?
Maria Belveduto