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.