The first step is informing citizens when their streets will be cleared. In dense, downtown neighborhoods, most people park on the street and their cars need to move. No parking signs get installed block by block and notifications go out through the city-maintained snow removal app, InfoNeige (equivalent to InfoSnow in English). Municipal lots are opened up with free parking, and as one final warning, tow trucks blare a siren before hauling away any outstanding vehicles.
Get the feeling that this has been done before. I just can't remember where.
I would really like to see this used to tell people where street parking is available in areas where there is alternate side cleaning. A LOT of people spend ~ 5-10 mins 2-3 times a week looking for parking in NYC and its boroughs(where I live) or really any city with this issue.
This looks like a great recipe the 'parking laws' being changed with zero notice and your car getting towed away. No longer does the city have to send someone out to mark where your car is currently parked as an immediate towaway zone.
Many New Yorkers own cars for weekend trips or recreation, not commuting— if you've ever seen how long it takes for many cars to get dug out and moved in NYC after a snowstorm when alternate-side parking is suspended, this becomes very clear.
It's free to park on the street in most of NYC. And, with alternate side of the street rules, spaces open up every couple of days. You just need to be there when the street-sweeper goes by so you can grab one.
As others noted, the declaration happened before the weather hit. People could reasonably move their cars. All of the affected spaces are super clearly marked and people who park there regularly should've had very ample warning about it.
Additionally, based on my understanding, a lot of local parking lots/garages drastically dropped their rates to help accommodate.
In my city at least the weekly street cleaning requires you to move your car weekly. So signs posted a week ahead are typically not as bad. Though the police did once us my apartment buzzer to tell me to move my car, it didn’t always happen (I’ve been towed twice in my 2 decades in the city)..
Also when they tow you it’s to a lot, they don’t just dump you on some other street like in Philly.
When I was in college, the local towing company gave to the city a street sweeping machine. Naturally, that machine needed to be used, and to use it, there can't be any cars along the side of the road. That led to new rules about what side of which street on which day has parking prohibited. Naturally, the city had to call the tow truck company to remove any cars that parked in the way of their new sweeper.
Why would you go out of town in the middle of winter and leave your car parked on a snow emergency route?
You don't get to set up problems for yourself, then complain when those self-created problems have consequences.
I don't understand why so many are eager to defend these people. If you can't move your car quickly, don't park it in a place where you might need to move it quickly. If you negligently leave your car on a major road during a blizzard, don't be shocked to find that your car has been dug out courtesy of city parking enforcement.
What makes you’ll still have street parking then..? Cities in Europe are waking up and pushing cars out for good. Hope it’s sooner than later, especially in old towns.
Even if it is, that’s not sufficient to inform car owners to move their vehicles. Where I live, all public parking (whether you have a parking permit or park in spots which don’t require one) has a 72 hour limit. If you put up temporary No Parking signs with less than 72 hours notice, you’re guaranteeing many people will have their cars towed inappropriately.
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