State Accepts Rudolph Plan For Parking

Cambrige's controversial snow clearance plan yesterday won state approval. Ratification by the Massachusetts Department of Public Works removed the only legal barrier to its enactment.

Traffic director Robert E. Rudolph said that the new regulation would definitely be in effect by the second week of January. Traffic officials need 7,500 cardboard "No Parking" signs before the program can begin.

The regulation authorizes Rudolph to declare a state of emergency on the basis of weather reports. Parking would then be prohibited on both sides of "emergency arteries" and on the odd side of most other streets. The Traffic Department has named 76 streets emergency arteries, including Massachusetts Ave and Cambridge, Boylston, Brattle, and Mt. Auburn Sts.

Rudolph modeled his plan in part on laws he administered in Baltimore, when he was an assistant traffic commissioner until last July.

Vellucci Blasts Plan

City Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci has called the plan "cockeyed," and threatened Rudolph with the end of his career in Cambridge. Rudolph told the CRIMSON.

"If it's my career, it's my career. It's something that has to be done."

Though concerned about where some 20,000 cars will find off-the-street parking places, he declared that "in an emergency we open the streets first, and worry where to put the cars second."

He urged residents to begin looking for emergency spots for their cars.

He has received no "really adverse statements" from the public. "We're trying to make parking regulations as easy as we can on residents when it's not snowing," he said. "In exchange, we're asking their cooperation when it does snow."