Norwood Committee Faults T Study-July 9, 1987

The conflict centers on a proposed parking deck at the Norwood Depot—a project that has met with significant resistance from local residents, hundreds of whom have attended public hearings and signed petitions to oppose the construction. The MBTA has used its April parking study to argue that a significant portion of vehicles parked at the Norwood stations are owned by non-residents from across the region, thereby justifying the need for a large-scale parking structure. However, the Norwood Parking Committee claims these findings are skewed by the inclusion of data from distant towns, misrepresenting the actual daily usage patterns of local commuters.

Edward McKenna, chairman of the parking study, spearheaded an effort to re-examine the data by excluding vehicles from communities considered too far away to provide daily rail commuters. By filtering out these 76 vehicles, the committee concluded that 57 percent of the cars in the lots are owned by Norwood residents, a figure substantially higher than the 49 percent reported by the MBTA. According to the MBTA’s original breakdown, residents from Walpole, Westwood, and Medfield made up a combined majority of the parking lot occupancy. Conversely, the committee’s recalculated figures suggest a far more localized reliance on the lots: 57 percent from Norwood, 16 percent from Walpole, 15 percent from Westwood, and 3 percent from Medfield, with all other municipalities accounting for less than 1.5 percent each.

The discrepancy in these figures is central to the debate over whether the town requires the significant infrastructure investment of a multi-level parking deck. The current proposals on the table include a more modest option of repaving and relining the existing lot at the Norwood Depot, which would add roughly 64 spaces to the current capacity of 143. More ambitious proposals involve the construction of a one- or two-deck parking facility. Residents have been vocal in their opposition to the deck, viewing it as an unnecessary transformation of the station area that does not accurately reflect the parking needs of the local population. As the parking committee continues to advocate for its own interpretation of the usage data, the town remains divided on how best to accommodate the demand for commuter parking while preserving the character of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger