saving parking spots

[phpanda.livejournal.com]

What is Somerville etiquette about chairs set in a parking spot to save for the person who shoveled once in the intial storm and continues to hold the space for their individual use only?  Does the city have a policy about this or cars buried on the odd side that have never been shoveled or moved for the last month?  Do people honor the saved spots? Meanwhile, stay warm and safe as the next blizzard event begins!

Comments

[trysha.livejournal.com]

It's a war. No one has a legal right to a saved space.

Conflicts are interpersonal. Police will not help you.

If you put something in a space you shoveled out - people may or may not honor that. People might destroy or remove the item you placed there. You should also be prepared to have a conflict with those who disagree that spaces should be saved.

If you park in a space with something placed in it - you should be prepared to have some sort of conflict with the person who put the item in that space. Your car might end up damaged, scratched, or tires slashed.

Your car is the only legitimate space saver you can use.

Somerville you can only leave a car for 48 hours in any given spot, they can ticket you with a "snow bird" ticket if your car is buried there for days.

[courtney o'keefe (from livejournal.com)]

Also-

The City will go around and collect the items as trash.

[trysha.livejournal.com]

They do that in somerville now too? Excellent (IMO)

[courtney o'keefe (from livejournal.com)]

Yes! I love it when I see the truck drive by filled with chairs, tables and (one year) a bust of Elvis Presley.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

But (potentially) woe betide someone who unwittingly parks in a space from which the city has removed a chair!

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Will the city plow to the curb?

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

pfft -- maybe in the Davis area. good luck getting anyone to collect stuff around Winter Hill...

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Too bad. I was just trying to think if I had anything to get rid of that the city wouldn't normally take so I could put it in a parking spot and have them take it away...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

Amusingly, I saw someone's saved space being "held" by one of the City-provided trash receptacles. I wonder what the DPW will do about that?

[smammy]

Thank you. Your explanation of the situation is the best I've seen.

[ron_newman]

Feel free to remove these whenever you see them. Somerville's policy is that they are abandoned property and trash that the DPW will pick up and dispose of.

[beliyaal.livejournal.com]

I've definitely furnished apartments with other peoples' space savers.

On top of being illegal, a lot of streets around here don't have enough parking for everyone to park at once, even when large chunks of the street aren't unusable due to snow. If people are reserving their spots even when they're not there, the situation rapidly becomes untenable.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I think the saving-parking thing would work out better if, instead of threatening damage if someone uses "your" spot while away, the "digger-outter" put in a sign saying they'll return at X o'clock. This way someone only needing the spot for an hour or two won't worry about damage to the car or an angry spouse/neighbor protecting the spot of the non-present person

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

Sort of, these are public spots. But yeah, there are many times where I only need to be in a place for 20 minutes, and I pass 5 space saved spots.

I think the real solution is to actually charge money for the stickers. Instead of $10 it should be about equal to the cost of renting an off street spot. With the current system, we've got a good product which is scare because it is given away for almost nothing.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

dunno which somerville you live in, but the resident sticker is $30 here, not $10. and off-street spots run $100+ per month. i think the city would have full-scale riots on their hands if they tried to charge $1200/year for a resident sticker.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

30 does not make a difference in the argument-it is 2.50 per month to park anywhere in the city. Yes, people would be whining babies, as they always are when they have been getting something for free or heavily subsidized that is ending. But look how angry they are now. We need to step back and look at what would make sense.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

I don't think being angry if the city decides to charge 40x what they do now for a sticker qualifies as "whining babies" -- there are a lot of people in this city who are barely hanging on, and something like that could stomp on their fingers pretty badly.

but really, i'm stepping back now.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Great idea! That'll push non-wealthy people out of somerville even faster than rising rents!

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

Aid to low income people could be shifted away from subsidizing driving into rent/food subsidies.