Last week I was standing on the streets of Brooklyn. I was on a block where it was alternate side of the street parking for street cleaning. As is common what happens is cars on one side double park on the other to let the street sweeper go through, then return to their side.
In the past I have seen a car get written up for not moving off the side they were suppose to, but never seen the double parked cars get written, though I’m sure it happens.
But this time I did and it just doesn’t seem right. The people are trying to work together under difficult circumstances to keep the streets clean. Yes the double parking can cause problems but there are no alternatives when one side of the street is closed to parking, which I think is for a 1.5 hr period.
I cannot imagine people doing that in Chicago, and parking isn’t exactly easy here. (Well, it’s pretty easy where I live now, thanks to the large park across the street, but I used to live in a parking scarce neighborhood.)
How do people deal? Do they not go to work? Do they plan on taking the bus on street cleaning day because they assume they won’t be able to access their car? How prompt are people at moving their double parked cars once the street cleaner is done?
If it were coordinated for overnight and people really did move their cars promptly, I could see it actually being a really good way to handle street cleaning.
Sometimes the double parking is done in a way where everyone can still get out, occasionally it requires driving on a sidewalk. Other times there is just not enough space. Sometimes the double parker leaves a cell number on the front window of the car, but failing that leaning on the horn of the blocked car usually gets someone’s attention of the usually 4 cars that can be moved to unblock the one stuck.
Again it’s just for a limited time, so knowing that your car may be stuck for 1.5 hrs or so if you park it a locked in space is just something that has become common there.
Also pretty much everyone moves once, or slightly before, the time that the other side reopens as they want to get a legal space, double parking after that time is up not only is a high risk of a ticket or towing but also could and has blocked roads with trucks and busses that can’t fit with the double parking and cars now legally parked on the the other side.
There’s no reason that if that’s the way the culture works, they can’t get that put into the law. I don’t think there’s really a right or wrong answer here for what the law should allow, as long as it’s marked and reasonable.
Where I live, when one side of the street is closed for street cleaning a few hours, people don’t double park; they find some other street to park on. I would certainly be pretty miffed if I parked somewhere and came out to find that my car had been blocked in. There are a lot of times that I can’t just be an hour late because someone didn’t want to park a few blocks away.
If there isn’t any parking within a few blocks, then it sounds like a better solution is to build some parking structures. A city where both sides of the street are choked with parked cars needs more parking or fewer cars.
The margin for error is very small. I have gotten parking tickets for being double parked as little as 3 minutes past the appointed time. You snooze, you lose.
yup I used to drive in Manhattan and had to park and run into stores to pick up the days receipts. I got something like 80 tickets for double parking and sometimes I was just in there for 5 minutes. other times about 30 minutes drinking beer but that’s another story :D. they finally towed the car and it was cheaper to buy a new/used one than pay all the fines.
It is part of the culture. Generally, the cops ignore it if you are back before the street cleaning time is up. I was visiting my son in Brooklyn a few years back and there was street cleaning on his street I think it was Thursdays, 8:30 to 10. Both my son and I went out at 8:30 and moved our cars to the other side (double parking, but staying in our cars). As the street cleaning machine went down the street it was trailed by double parked cars parking behind it, including my son and me.
For people who work, there is an informal service where everyone on the street pays a guy to move all their cars to the other side and then back.