Traffic Director Robert Rudolph and Councilman Alfred Vellucci smiled broadly at each other, shook hands, and agreed "to bury the hatchet" at an informal meeting yesterday.

Rudolph had announced earlier that he was tentatively reducing the $3 parking meter fine to $1 for most offenders. Vellucci, who had previously ridiculed several of Rudolph's programs, hailed the reduction as a "victory for all law-abiding citizens of Cambridge."

Rudolph said that the reduced fine, scheduled to go into effect on June 1, does not mean that he has "backed down under any kind of pressure." He merely wanted to establish more amicable relations with "certain members" of the City Council and the merchants of Cambridge."

Defending his $3 fine at a recent City Council meeting, Rudolph stated that the penalty was necessary to clamp down on "meter feeders" who monopolize parking spaces all day with eight nickels. However, Vellucci and most Cambridge merchants felt that the "excessive fine" was driving away business and unduly penalizing motorists. The money the Court House has taken from parking fines is exorbitant, Vellucci says.

Honesty Pays

Under the new plan, "honest violators" who are a few minutes overtime on a meter will be fined $1. But "meter feeders" observed by policemen will be tagged for the $3 fine.

The scheme represents a compromise between Rudolph and Vellucci. Neither of them want parking regulations to show any mercy for the "meter feeder," and Rudolph certainly does not want to antagonize the Cambridge shopper.

Vellucci said he was "very happy" about the new arrangement; for Rudolph the plan was only "experimental." Vellucci was quick to warn Rudolph that if the $3 fine were reinstated for any reason, "the hatchet I buried was not the only one I own."