Whale’s Tooth is a 720-space surface parking lot located at 532 Acushnet Ave. in New Bedford. For the past several years, it has been used exclusively by the operator of the Seastreak seasonal ferry service for passenger parking. It is owned and operated by the New Bedford Port Authority (NBPA).

The lot is located next to the new Downtown New Bedford intercity rail station. Under an agreement with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the NBPA will designate a section of the parking lot specifically for train passengers.

The primary user will remain the Seastreak Ferry. These designated MBTA spaces will be in addition to the 355 spaces available at the MBTA-owned and operated lot at the Church Street station located approximately 3 miles to the north of Whale’s Tooth and which will be for the exclusive use of MBTA riders.

The NBPA will designate 150 parking spaces at Whale’s Tooth for train passengers on the northern end of the lot closest to the station. These spaces will be marked with special line painting and signage in the area.

The remaining spaces will be available for Seastreak Ferry passengers.

There will be no advanced/reserved purchase of parking. All parking will be first come, first served. Additional parking may also be available at the Elm Street garage, a short walk from the station.

The MBTA also has 355 parking spaces available at the new Church Street train station, which is roughly three miles north of Whale’s Tooth at 387 Church St. This lot is exclusively for use by rail passengers.

There will be two different rates, daily and multi-day.

The daily rate ($4 weekday and $2 weekend) is the same price the MBTA charges at its lots and stations along the South Coast Rail line.

Because most of the Whale’s Tooth lot will be utilized by Seastreak Ferry passengers that typically park for extended periods, there will be multi-day rate of $15/day that will be paid by any vehicle parking beyond the daily hours of train service. Based on the published MBTA schedule, the last train is expected to arrive at the station at 1:32 am.

Overnight/multi-day parking is generally not allowed in MBTA-operated lots (fewer than 10% allow it), so the multi-day rate is specifically for ferry passengers and is the same rate that’s been in place for several years.

The Whale’s Tooth lot will deploy a gateless text-to-pay fare system for parking. While the XpressPark system will not be the same as at other MBTA-owned and managed lots, it will function in much the same way and provide the same simple and seamless payment option. The system will provide clear and transparent information on parking rates, with payments made and verified through the simple text interface. Signage is clearly visible throughout the Lot with the simple instructions for accessing the system and the steps required to make a payment

Parking enforcement will be conducted under contract for the New Bedford Port Authority. The text-to-pay system is designed to alert parkers at two intervals in advance of the expiration of the parking time purchased. There will be options to add multi-day fees before ticketing enforcement commences.

Enforcement will be done at multiple intervals during the day and night. License plates will be matched to the text payments, and tickets will be issued for overstays.

While Whale’s Tooth will generally operate differently, to align with the MBTA’s promotional program along the new rail route, daily parking will be free through April 30.  The multi-day parking fees and enforcement will commence with the start of Seastreak’s seasonal service on April 17.

• Because the lot will not be “gated”, entrances and exits are expected to flow freely even during peak times, so traffic and queuing are not expected to be a concern. There will also be an additional entrance/exit available onto Acushnet Avenue on the western edge of the lot to complement the primary entrance and exit on the south side.

Seastreak Ferry passengers have utilized the Whale’s Tooth Lot for several years, so we have a solid understanding of their parking patterns and lot utilization over the course of the seasonal ferry service. During many peak weekends over the summer, the ferry passengers would regularly occupy all of the 756 spaces in the lot. Seastreak is a longstanding and important stakeholder in the Port. It is important that Seastreak and its customers are able to still rely substantially on the utilization of the Whale’s Tooth Lot to support the ferry service.

Contrastingly, while there will be up to 150 spaces “set aside” for MBTA rail passenger parking in the Lot at the start of rail service, it is not possible to know what those patterns and parking volume will be, particularly until the service has been operational for several weeks or months to get a sense of demand during the week and on weekends. The utilization of these spaces will be monitored carefully, particularly during the first few weeks of South Coast Rail Service.

Parking throughout the New Bedford waterfront is at a premium, especially in the busy summer months. The search for available parking often creates uncertainty for visitors as well as traffic and circulation issues in and around the waterfront and downtown. Thus, it is in everyone’s interest to ensure that available parking spaces are being utilized as much as possible and not left empty when they could be filled.

As with any parking lot, it is possible that demand could reach or exceed available spaces during the summer months. Parking cannot be reserved or guaranteed for any user.

Seastreak is aware of the new system that will be deployed, and they will take necessary steps to notify their customers when they purchase their ferry tickets in advance about the new system for how the lot will be managed and will advise them that they are not to park in the spaces delineated for rail passengers.

The operation of the Whale’s Tooth Parking Lot and the patterns of the different users will be closely monitored by the New Bedford Port Authority and communicated with the MBTA and Seastreak, and if modifications to the operations are merited to optimize utilization, those changes will be implemented by the Port Authority.