The City of Boca Raton absolutely plans to get rid of the beach park gatehouses. That might sound hyperbolic if you’ve followed the story, given that they’ve walked back their initial plans to “modernize” the parks. But that’s how things work in politics – especially local politics. Issues are raised months or years before anyone realistically thinks they’re going to go through, baiting people into being outraged and lashing out far too early. Whatever it is they’re trying to do will be unceremoniously, and quietly, pushed through later. People simply don’t have infinite attention spans, so eventually if elected officials want something to happen, it’ll happen.
Many times this is actually a good thing. People who are particularly invested in local politics and get outraged aren’t angels themselves, and often get themselves fired up for stupid and counterproductive reasons. Nothing would get done if every official had to pull the breaks and earnestly listen to every over-worried resident who thinks their opinion is exclusively valuable. But this is not one of those times. Getting rid of gatehouses at the parks and creating metered beach parking in their place is fundamentally wrongheaded.
Do they really want to get rid of Boca gatehouses?
Probably. While they’ve officially shelved the idea after backlash for review, it’s quite likely this plan comes back. But for many City residents it’s not the right plan. It would be like Yellowstone deciding to remove all barriers to entry and allowing people to simply drive in and use license plate scanners. Putting aside how that would be implemented in the first place, it wouldn’t be a bad idea in a place like Deerfield. There, beaches are centers of commerce, a place open to whoever is willing to drive there and pay for parking. But Boca does not have beaches, really. We have beach parks. Our parks which should be run like parks, which means having a human park employee at the front to manage entry and exit, and watch for issues such as overcrowding, being a fixed point of safety.
It’s obvious that the city council does not understand the expectations of Boca residents when it comes to the services the city provides. Put bluntly, the average citizen couldn’t care less if the beaches are run “inefficiently”, if that inefficiency results in a higher quality of service. It seems that they’ve determined that any service which isn’t trimmed of so much fat that bone is showing is an unwelcome cost. Would the parks be more efficient if the person in the gatehouse was freed to do other jobs? Sure, if by “freed” you mean given a vaguer job description, or less charitably eliminated all together.
If you aren’t a dead-eyed bureaucrat you’d understand that having an employee greeting residents as they drive in and explaining the layout of the place to guests who have to pay an honestly outrageous fee is necessary. If you’re a Boca Resident, put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t live here but wants to go to the beach parks. You’ve just paid $50 to get in. AT LEAST there is someone there to explain the place to you, and to make you feel like you’ve actually paid for something exclusive. High paying guests should be treated that way because it is something exclusive. It’s a miracle that the nature surrounding the inter-coastal and beaches have been preserved to the extent that they have been. And someone paying $50 dollars deserves that level of service.
After the park is neutered to the extent that there isn’t even a gate house it isn’t honestly a park, it’s a glorified parking lot. Paying $50 dollars for access to a park is barely palatable. Paying $50 for parking is stomach churning. And while some residents will read this and think “good! I hope they don’t pay! I hope they go away!”, that’s not what will happen. Sure, they wont pay. People already find any way they can to weasel out of paying for beach parking. And you can bet that once Boca parking is stripped of ceremony and is left as just an outrageous price tag people will prefer to park anywhere else and walk to the beach, probably congesting it more in the long run. But at least they have the decency to not congest parking. This plan introduces plenty of other inconveniences.
Inviting Conflict with Metered Beach Parking
Why would anyone after experiencing the same rigamarole that you go through at every other neighboring beach think of Boca as something special? More importantly, why should they respect the park as a park?
There’ll be two types of nuisances which getting rid of gates will invite: Hovering Hawks, and Brazen Spot Squatters. Getting rid of the gates creates these two kinds of unprecedented problems Park Rangers didn’t have to deal with at all with a gate.
Hovering Hawks are the people who just will not give up finding a parking spot. If the place is full, which you can bet it will be during peak season, there will be Hawks circling the place constantly looking for anyone leaving and blocking whole lanes waiting stubbornly for the spot they’ve been targeting. What should be done about that? It certainly won’t be good for other visitors, let alone the wildlife who hang out around the parking lots. Increased idle traffic combined with arguing humans will make it a far less welcome habitat. And what should Park Rangers do in that case? Now they’re being asked to deal with new situations: people being trapped immobile in parks designed to be used differently. More pertinently, why should they have to do it? Why should anyone have to play the newly created role of parking referee, an issue which didn’t exist before and will occupy multiple people’s time when previously one person’s job was making sure it didn’t happen in the first place?
That’ll be even more of a problem with Spot Squatters. While previously rangers simply had to deal with the occasional beach bum and infrequent disturbances, the city’s plan invites an entirely new nuisance. People will absolutely drive in, park, and refuse to leave: scofflaws and intransigents who don’t care if they get ticketed. What if they drive in and refuse to leave, squatting in the parking space? This is much more likely to happen if people do not have to interact with a person when they enter the park, the self service model leaving the place susceptible to bad actors. So now the park ranger needs to call the police. So now the city has to send tow trucks to get these cars out. Now the police need to also crowd in there, and tow trucks need to navigate the narrow roads in these parks. Nobody wants the police to have to show up to deal with someone arrogantly flouting the rules while they’re barbecuing in the parks. While the argument could be made that this will only happen as often as it happens anywhere else, that misses the point; that being that this problem doesn’t happen when you have a gatehouse.
Finally: Why? Who Wants Metered Beach Parking?
Why propose this? I can’t imagine a more idyllically run system than Boca’s current beach parks. Why mess with success? Well, cutting it with the hypothetical questions, I guess the answer is the aforementioned cost cutting focus. It seems all government can do nowadays is make things worse in the name of efficiency. Well, spending the day at the beach isn’t efficient. Using that land for anything other than high-rises and shopping isn’t efficient. Yet we do it anyway because that ecosystem is unique and beautiful. It should be preserved, and that preservation should have extra effort put into it. And if that means a slightly inefficient position needs to exist at a gate house, then I guess inefficiency is preferable. If the city wants to make itself useful, establish a new park. Start a new public work. It’s not hurting for money! Don’t pinch pennies when it comes to the literal crown jewel of Boca.
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Meter It
Sure, the existing system isn’t perfect, but it works. And moving to a dehumanized, mechanized model under the guise of caring about the customer is just disingenuous. If the gatehouses need repair or replacement, let’s invest in that. If staffing is inefficient, let’s find ways to support and train our employees. But don’t replace friendly faces with cold machines and call it “customer-friendly.”
Take Action Now
Boca Raton residents and visitors should not stay silent. Let the City know that they should kill this proposal finally and absolutely. They should drop current plans to revisit/revise it. The only revision which should be considered is the creation of new, modern gatehouses. Contact the Mayor and City Council. Tell them to preserve the charm and accessibility of our beachfront parks.
📞 Call City Hall at (561) 393-7700
📧 Visit www.myboca.us and submit your comments
📝 Attend a City Council meeting and speak during public comment
