Interesting, I did not know that. Ignorance fought!
This seems like quite a sensible policy. I have done the shovelling out thing and it does tend to make one tetchy if someone else immediately takes the space you’ve cleared, but I also agree that there ought to be a time limit on that.
Agree with this if you arranged and paid for the service. But, what if you leave and someone nabs your spot - what do you do at that moment? Do you park in someone else’s cleared-out spot (not knowing if they paid for the service)? Sit there and honk your horn until someone comes out? Start hitting the parked car with a crowbar until the owner appears?…
I’ve lived in Chicago about 40 of the 50 years of my life, and I absolutely detest the dibs system. I’ve never dibbed a spot. If I’m shoveling the street, I’m often shoveling not just my spot, but my neighbors’ spot if they haven’t gotten to it. Do I get to dib those, too, then? But what really chaps my hide are those people who go dibbing when there’s been barely two inches of snow or who leave dibs out for weeks after the snow has all melted away. Yes, I have observed that. I can understand a dibs system as outlined for Boston. That makes some sense to me, and it’s formally codified. But there’s no agreed-up sensible “rules” here, so it’s all just an unfriendly mess.
The only time that parking spaces on my relatively remote section of town have been an issue is when there is a festival in town during the summer.
There are plowed spaces across the street in the rare event that someone parks in my spot.
I am planning on getting a handicapped sign set up from the boro but that takes some time and money.
What happens here in the Chicago area is that the person who ignored “dibs” tends to come back to a car that’s been covered with water (now ice), has its tires deflated, mirrors broken, etc.
After a particularly snowy winter Boston mayor Menino said trash pickup would take space savers 48 or 72 hours after the snow emergency was lifted. So people started putting out hazardous waste (paint cans, old CRTs) and the trash people didn’t want to touch it. It’s a never ending battle.
In 2015 we had on street parking and it was the snowiest month on record. We had a snow emergency for most of the month, so we only had parking on one side of the street. The parking spots were carved out of the rock hard snowbanks so it was tough to create new ones. Where there were double spots people would park in the middle to save a spot for their spouse, and move forward when they arrived. Some of those people had their cars vandalized, especially if they hadn’t shoveled out the spots in the first place.
It kind of makes no sense. Then all the street parking, where someone shovelled out, would be unavailable parking for the day?
In places where dibs has been banned, it’s the police that push for it, because it produces so many conflicts they don’t want to attend.
Canadians get WAY more snow. And this has never been a thing, anywhere I’ve lived. And we are currently buried under it. I live in a ‘snow belt’, and this is record amounts.
Why? Because we understand you cease to have ANY say, over ANY space, WHEN YOU DRIVE OFF!
It’s a really simple concept.
We all understand it. We all manage just fine.
We all get along. No one’s mad.
Y’all are Canadians. We love you for that.
Just be glad it rarely snows in any volume in Texas. If it did the sound of driver-to-driver gunfire could be heard all the way up in Canada.
I live in greater suburbia. Most homes on my street a) don’t park a car in the garage & b) have more cars than garage/driveway space; therefore, cars are parked on (one side) of the street. I helped my neighbor dig out his car yesterday so the plow could get rid of the snow to the curb as opposed to swinging around his car. After I left, he then put out garbage to hold the spot…before the plow even came. The plow had to wait for him to move his trash in order to plow; he then immediately moved his car back in. It’s not his personal spot & all the neighbors can’t stand that he treats it that way because it means they all need to park further away.
On the rare times that someone gets it & then pulls away I’ve seen him come out & move his car there just to reclaim his spot. He’s retired & doesn’t go anywhere regularly, but is fit enough to go for a walk every day.
Also note that there are places in Canadian cities where overnight street parking is illegal because (in part) it blocks snowplows.
I’ve never lived somewhere where “dibs” was a thing for a shoveled out spot. Once you leave, you leave. I used to live in a very dense neighborhood with very limited street parking, and the city would simply make municipal parking lots free for overnight. Where I live now, there’s space a little higher up the road or on a cross street if the space in front of the house is taken (rarely, but it’s happened. We have a one car driveway, second car is on street).
We also have snow removal, thankfully, so the longest I’ve ever dealt with limited parking due to on-street piles of snow was maybe a week. Our street now usually gets done 3-5 days after a snow storm.
Apparently annual snowfall is over two meters here (226cm or 89 inches) according to google; Montreal is too densely populated to leave it all down!
I freaking love snow removal; no matter how often I see it, I smile when watching those giant snow blowers.
If you live in an apartment building with multiple other residents and the spaces are not reserved, then street parking is up for grabs.
If you live in a single-family house and the spot is in front of your house, damn right it’s your spot. The other car should clean out the space in front of their house. Why is someone else parking in front of your house?
They are visiting a friend?
Note that ownership of the street is highly variable across the United States. Depending where you own, your property stops at the sidewalk, or the curb, or the buried utility lines under the street, or the center of the street. Of course ownership comes with limitations; there’s usually an easement for the public to travel along sidewalks and streets even if you otherwise own the land. This is especially common if the public maintains the sidewalk and street.
I see both sides of the issue. I am off the street right now, but I shoveled out a street spot. If I find the neighbors using it, I am going to be FURIOUS (they have a 4-car driveway), but I’m not going to vandalize the car. That’s monstrous beyond someone taking “your” spot. The space saving, which might seem reasonable for 24-48 hours post-storm, starts to spread. I see neighbors leaving them out in the summer! Sure, sometimes you are moving and want the space or like right now my kid’s friend is on crutches, but people spread out their territorial bullshit too far.
Me, too! I used to live in Montreal and I remember the sequence of events. Street and sidewalk plows would pile up the snow on the curbs. Eventually the piles would get pretty high and us kids would play in them. But then one day a truck would come along and set warning “No Parking – Snow Removal” signs on top of the snowbanks. Any unlucky car owner who was still parked there would be towed as the process began about 24 hours later.
I loved to see those signs because it meant that spectacular things were about to happen. As the great event began, plows cleared the last of the snow off the streets, and then, showtime!
A massive Sicard snowblower appeared, blowing massive amounts of snow into a dump truck. Those things were incredibly powerful and incredibly loud. They had gigantic twin augers and sounded like a locomotive engine. The truck taking up the snow was followed by a whole convoy of other dump trucks as the snowblower progressed. It was marvellously well organized. The whole thing was an impressive thing to see.
The last few minutes of that video give the general idea but our snow hills were much bigger and the trucks were ordinary dump trucks, not semis.
I remember when the usual practice in urban areas was to dump the snow removed from the road into the nearest river or other body of water. I believe that is no longer done, mostly because the plows pick up debris, motor oil and other contaminants along with the snow, so dumping in the river is polluting it.
That was just cool. I showed my son.