I’m trying to remember a time where there was a risk of this happening. I know I’ve had my husband or a friend come out to hold a spot, standing there with a shovel, but I can’t recall having been alone and having to manage this. I guess I was just lucky?
In Boston, the late mayor Tom Menino tried to mediate the neverending debate over who owns the right to park - the Shovelers or the Drivers. He came down heavily on the side of the rational City code, or “if you need to park and you see a space, you have the right to park in that space regardless whether you cleared it or not”. Well, he caught a lot of flak for that, because Bostonians are self-entitled bunch, and people can get remarkably butt-hurt over random drivers encroaching on something they put a lot of sweat into reserving for their personal use and no one else’s. And if you remove the chair or traffic cone or whatever they put in their space to mark it as private property, you are at grave risk to find your vehicle vandalized. Feuds were seldom solved by calm reflection.
The most amusing parking spot placeholder I remember was a lifesize plywood cutout of Mayor Menino, with his trademark “what me worry” expression, that stood in your space to hold it for you. It was funny, and who could get mad at Hizzoner looking out for his people?
You shovel that spot, it’s yours.
Simply prohibit all on street parking from Nov-Mar. Problem solved.
If the kids won’t play nice, take away the toys.
This would be a disaster. Where would people park?
There is no off street parking where I live.
It’s a modest proposal.
Maybe the city should not allow car ownership in excess of off-street owned / leased parking.
Maybe cars could be stored for the season in fallow farm fields two counties away.
Maybe the plows should be authorized to simply heedlessly plow through any obstacles found between the curbs.
Simply impossible in many cities, including several I’ve lived in. I was in a triple decker, responsible for 5-6 cars and we had no off street parking. We were just one of several triple deckers in the neighborhood with no off street parking. Certainly any new construction allows for an appropriate amount of parking but older housing stock doesn’t have it and it can’t be retrofitted.
Yeah. Like I said, a “modest” proposal.
The reality, as you say, is that the supply of cars exceeds the supply of parking on a normal warm dry summer night. Add in snow and there’s just no choice but for everybody to put up with insufficient supply and excess demand. Which ought to call for extra community spirit to your fellow-person, but usually brings out the most selfish of the selfish behavior instead.
I can certainly understand and agree with the good-natured grumbling about the inconvenience of it all. I too have lived in a snowy neighborhood with inadequate off- and on-street parking.
But if anyone is truly angry at neighbors or the “dibs” system or the lack of a dibs system, well, your real anger should be directed at the systemic fault of inadequate parking provisions given the actual year-round weather of your area. Maybe the city should buy up every other building in those neighborhoods, tear them down, and put parking spaces in the freed up land. Otherwise, grin and bear it.
I’ve got an idea; maybe all of the elderly (& slow) drivers in Boston should move to Miami area Less cars in Boston & they’ll live longer (& drive even slower) because they don’t keel over from MIs (heart attacks) while shoveling. I mean, it’s a win for the Bostonian’s (less cars) it’s a win for those who move (live longer); the only ones who will suffer are those who already live F/T in FL, but who likes those jerks? 
Not me. 
I encountered two dangerously slow drivers tonight to/from dinner. KY & CT plates.
The last place I lived in Salt Lake City was down a private road that wasn’t plowed. There was a number of houses and a limited number of parking in one area for those of us without or insufficent off-streat parking. Because there wasn’t much outside traffic, some people put out obstacles to keep “their” space.
As long as it’s reasonable, I don’t have a problem with it.
That actually happens in Japan. You have to have an off-street owned or leased parking spot in order to register a car. They actually come out to your house and verify that. As you noted later, then while it’s ideal, it’s so difficult to actually implement it.
As
As colinfred said, it’s a parking restriction. My street is narrow in places, so the double-yellow lines should prevent people parking on the opposite side of the street and thereby making it difficult for emergency services to get through. A lot of people also ignore that, they park half on the road and half on the pavement, presumably justifying it to themselves because the wheels of the car don’t actually touch the yellow lines!
I don’t understand how this problem arises, or why anyone would be shoveling a public street. Aren’t the streets plowed after a snowstorm?
Not everywhere. One thing I miss about southern Ontario is that every street got plowed within 48 hours of a snowstorm. And I mean every street, from the main arteries down to the little residential side streets on cul-de-sacs. Main arteries first, of course, but the plows would eventually get everywhere.
That doesn’t happen here in Alberta, for instance. Quiet residential side streets are left to deal, with no benefit of a plow all winter. My driveway slopes down to the street, except in winter, when thanks to the hardpacked snow on the street, it slopes up when it hits the street.
There was an incident maybe ten or fifteen years ago, where a Calgary house burned down, because the quiet residential street it was on was unplowed, and the fire department could not get to it. There had been a snowstorm, and the snow drifted, creating four and five-foot drifts, and the fire trucks could not get through the drifts. At least, not close enough to be able to do anything but watch the house burn down. Lots of debate at City Hall (“We must plow side streets!” “That will cost too much in taxes!”), then summer came and the issue was forgotten.
I’ve lived in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge. Of all, the only one that plows every street has been Toronto.
Not just Toronto, but all the outlying burbs, too. And I’d say even the minor side streets get done well within 24 hours, or even 12, not 48. Montreal is the same way, but they get much more snow than we do.
Not having streets plowed at all is incredible. It’s a major dereliction of an important civic responsibility that as you pointed out is a safety hazard and should bloody well be illegal. What if, instead of a house burning down, someone was having a heart attack? How would paramedics get to them quickly?
Except the plows can’t clear the roadside if cars are parked there. There may be parking restrictions to allow plowing but someone always leaves their car behind and those cars need to be towed.
They’d park on a cleared road, carrying a WWI-style stretcher.
Seriously.
My wife and I are 65 now. This is one of the reasons we moved. High probability of an ambulance not being able to get within a 1/4 mile of our house in the winter. Certainly not up the long steep driveway.
Our road did get plowed (sometimes I did it) but we where last on the list.
They plow the streets, but they don’t plow the parking lane. And everyone who parked needs to shovel out the berm that the snowplow left around their car.
In most US cities they don’t remove the snow with trucks, they just shove it to the side. Where the parked cars are.
Phrasing!