Once little more than one giant parking lot, Boston’s Seaport has exploded into a thicket of swanky lofts, hotels, and offices — and now there’s hardly a place to park.
Across Boston, no issue draws more ire than parking, especially as on-demand spaces are scarce, and ride-hailing and delivery services have surged.
Parking complaints make up the single largest category of calls to Boston’s 311 system — more than 60,000 in the past year, triple the number of requests for street cleaning, the next most common grievance. It’s the top complaint in virtually every neighborhood.
Nowhere are frustrations higher than on a short stretch of Congress and Summer streets in the Seaport, where people filed more than 1,000 complaints in just 200 meters in the past year. The corridor is ringed by apartment towers and restaurants such as Row 34 and shops like Lululemon, and there’s a large commercial building under construction along that stretch that advertises space for lease.
“It’s hard to find a place” to park, said Marco Flores, 39, of Lowell, who often works in Seaport. “You go one minute over time and you get a ticket.” He expects to get two tickets a year, and added that the paid lots “cost so much.”
Just steps from one of Boston’s most notorious hot spots for complaints, the Seaport South Garage charges more than $40 a day, according to its booking service.
Even if someone’s trying to follow the rules, they can still run into penalties, residents said.
“I parked my truck and walked over to pay the meter,” said Gerson Schemmilpfenig, 41, of Marlborough, who also works construction nearby. In that sliver of time, “someone gave me a ticket.”
Nick Gove, the city’s deputy chief of streets said, “It is not our intent to issue a violation for somebody who is was trying to comply,” adding that residents can file an appeal through the city’s website.
Parking complaints filed to 311 don’t always result in tickets, but city data show the hot spots for complaints closely track where ticketing is most aggressive. But many tickets, which range in cost from $15 to $120, are issued without a 311 complaint.
The city prioritizes enforcing safety-related violations, Gove said. “For example, blocking the public way, blocking fire hydrants.”
Other hot spots emerged in dense neighborhoods near major throughways, where commuters and residents compete for limited space, data show. They include clusters of 311 complaints near Thomas Park in South Boston and near the intersection of Route 28 and Interstate 90 on the South End–Bay Village border.
As density ramps up in the city’s most popular neighborhoods, some residents have learned to accept it.
“That’s just the way it is here,” Schemmilpfenig said.
Neena Hagen can be reached at neena.hagen@globe.com.