6 ms·

Washington Gives $1.3M in Parking Fines During Snowstorm

62 points by daj40 11y ago

mikeash 11y ago
And? Don't park in snow emergency routes during a historic blizzard.
- mmanfrin 11y ago
  The advisory said they issued 2,091 parking tickets in the first three hours of the mayor’s declaration. The tickets drew backlash from drivers who said they were unable to dig out their cars. Others said they did not feel comfortable driving in the snow, some because their cars were not properly equipped for it. 3 hours after the declaration, and for cars that could not reasonably be moved because of said emergency. Have some fucking empathy.
  - eridius 11y ago
    > Mayor Muriel E. Bowser declared the emergency on Friday before a storm that dropped as much as 26 inches on the capital. That sentence there carries the word "before", which suggests that when the mayor made the declaration, the blizzard had not yet snowed in any cars.
  - jhauris 11y ago
    That's not exactly how it played out. FTA: "Mayor Bowser announced the snow emergency the day before the storm hit, on Thursday, and parking enforcement officers and tow drivers moved swiftly once it went into effect on Friday morning." Also, looks like the mayor is voiding all the tickets from the 22nd: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mayor-Bowser-Voids-All-Snow-Emergency-Route-Tickets-Issued-Jan-22-366878781.html http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mayor-Bowser-Voids-A...
  - mikeash 11y ago
    We knew the storm was coming days before. Snow emergency routes are posted and publicly known. People's cars couldn't be stuck there due to the snow unless they failed to move their cars before the storm like they were required to do. This failure makes it much harder to clear important roads and impedes emergency services. Ticketing these people seems entirely appropriate to me.
    - ChuckMcM 11y ago
      This is what my friends in DC feel as well. There was a lot of lead up to the storm, and well before it hit you could have moved your car elsewhere. But people were "betting on the come" as they say in Craps and they were parking there assuming that either a) they would be able to move if it snowed, and b) if it snowed so much that they couldn't move well the city would have bigger problems than ticketing them. If the law is amended, it should be amended to read "It is illegal to park on a snow emergency route at time time during and 24hours before a snow emergency. A snow emergency exists when the city declares it." Then the city could announce the emergency before the snow started, and start warning people, and then start ticketing people, and ideally by the time the snow hit there would be few if any cars in the emergency snow lanes.
      - Bedon292 11y ago
        The emergency did go into effect before the snow actually fell. Not 24 hours before, but most of the ticketing and towing was right before or immediately after the snow started falling.
  - noodle 11y ago
    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.
  - akgerber 11y ago
    I would be more inclined to have some empathy if my local drivers didn't think the city's bicycle lanes were an appropriate place to park for the next week because they are too lazy to dig out a parking space.
  - digbyloftus 11y ago
    These fuckwits had advanced warning of the blizzard and still parked in a way to hinder emergency response capabilities. How you can paint them as innocent people who were fucked over is beyond me.
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    3 hours after the declaration there was not a single flake of snow on the ground.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
thrownaway2424 11y ago
Drivers angered at being called out on their selfish behavior. In other breaking news, water confirmed to be still wet.
ihsw 11y ago
This is Washington DC (absolutely egregious omission by NYTimes, IMO), and not only were the roads blanketed with snow but exceedingly slippery a day earlier. See here for anecdotal reports regarding the city's absurd winter road strategy: https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/41xgqe/lmfao/ https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/41xgqe/lmfao/ And furthermore, thousands of tickets will be forgiven: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-to-forgive-thousands-of-parking-tickets-issued-during-snowstorm/2016/01/28/a4e342de-c5db-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-to-forgi...
- maxerickson 11y ago
  I dunno, not having much of a plan seems like an appropriate measure for storms that only happen every 5 years or so. Which sounds glib, but it takes a lot of equipment to be able to rapidly deal with snow on a lot of roads, equipment that would be sitting around rusting a lot of the time.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    This is more like a 25-year or 50-year event, I'd say. I think this was the #2 or #3 biggest blizzard recorded here. It's ok for something like that to screw things up for a few days.
calvinbhai 11y ago
All tickets (for parking on snow emergency routes) have been voided http://dcist.com/2016/01/mayor_bowser_is_voiding_tickets_iss.php http://dcist.com/2016/01/mayor_bowser_is_voiding_tickets_iss... During snow emergencies, cities should work with parking garages to make overnight parking for cars, free. It'll solve a lot of problems. If cars are not removed past the emergency, ticket revenue can be shared with the garage
- dustcoin 11y ago
  >During snow emergencies, cities should work with parking garages to make overnight parking for cars, free. It'll solve a lot of problems. DC did in this case. The city warned about the emergency routes ahead of time, offered free parking at metro stations, and worked with private garages to offer $1/day parking.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  That's generous. Do you also think the city should "work with" hotels to provide free housing for people during snow storms, or is your outpouring reserved only for automobiles?
  - jsmeaton 11y ago
    If they declared your house was in an emergency route and you had to move for a few days then yes.
    - restalis 11y ago
      In your reasoning you do take into account the houses being immobile and automobiles - well... mobile?
  - Bedon292 11y ago
    Actually, the city did work with area motels to house homeless in order to get them off the streets, since they were out of space in the homeless shelters.
  - 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gleenn 11y ago
Washington only charges $20 per day of impound? My motorcycle spent a 3 days in impound because someone moved in and needed moving-truck street space costing me over $600 with a few hundred for the ticket and then something closer to $100 a day for impound. Stupid San Francisco. Parking at only $1 is also incredible.
- Bedon292 11y ago
  How is this a thing? Were there posted signs that the moving truck was coming? Why did they not just have them look up the license plate and ask you to move? So many better solutions...
Bedon292 11y ago
The snow emergency was announced on Thursday a full day before the snow arrived. The emergency then went into effect Friday morning and the snow did not start until around lunch time, several hours later. There was not a single flake of snow in the first couple hours when most of the tickets were issues. People who are saying they got tickets for being 'snowed in' are blatantly misrepresenting what happened. They were parked illegally before the snow even fell, and had plenty of warning. Additionally, as others have said, parking was FREE at metro station garages around the area through Tuesday. And many area garages were also offering free or $1 parking. There is absolutely no excuse for being parked on the snow emergency routes.
- rsp1984 11y ago
  Maybe consider that many people just can't act that fast. Some may not have even been in town. The average time from when people heard about the announcement until the first snow was falling was probably just about a couple of hours. I would also assume that the free or $1 garage parking was full just a couple hours after the announcement.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    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.
    - BostonEnginerd 11y ago
      Some of us do travel for a living and can be out of town for weeks on end. It does happen -- and where you're parked is an afterthought. You don't always get to pick which street you park on.
barney54 11y ago
DC is great at giving tickets, but as of yesterday main roads in DC still weren't completely cleared of snow. They are inept at the stuff that counts.

62 points by daj40 11y ago

mikeash 11y ago

And? Don't park in snow emergency routes during a historic blizzard.

mmanfrin 11y ago
The advisory said they issued 2,091 parking tickets in the first three hours of the mayor’s declaration. The tickets drew backlash from drivers who said they were unable to dig out their cars. Others said they did not feel comfortable driving in the snow, some because their cars were not properly equipped for it. 3 hours after the declaration, and for cars that could not reasonably be moved because of said emergency. Have some fucking empathy.
- eridius 11y ago
  > Mayor Muriel E. Bowser declared the emergency on Friday before a storm that dropped as much as 26 inches on the capital. That sentence there carries the word "before", which suggests that when the mayor made the declaration, the blizzard had not yet snowed in any cars.
- jhauris 11y ago
  That's not exactly how it played out. FTA: "Mayor Bowser announced the snow emergency the day before the storm hit, on Thursday, and parking enforcement officers and tow drivers moved swiftly once it went into effect on Friday morning." Also, looks like the mayor is voiding all the tickets from the 22nd: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mayor-Bowser-Voids-All-Snow-Emergency-Route-Tickets-Issued-Jan-22-366878781.html http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mayor-Bowser-Voids-A...
- mikeash 11y ago
  We knew the storm was coming days before. Snow emergency routes are posted and publicly known. People's cars couldn't be stuck there due to the snow unless they failed to move their cars before the storm like they were required to do. This failure makes it much harder to clear important roads and impedes emergency services. Ticketing these people seems entirely appropriate to me.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    This is what my friends in DC feel as well. There was a lot of lead up to the storm, and well before it hit you could have moved your car elsewhere. But people were "betting on the come" as they say in Craps and they were parking there assuming that either a) they would be able to move if it snowed, and b) if it snowed so much that they couldn't move well the city would have bigger problems than ticketing them. If the law is amended, it should be amended to read "It is illegal to park on a snow emergency route at time time during and 24hours before a snow emergency. A snow emergency exists when the city declares it." Then the city could announce the emergency before the snow started, and start warning people, and then start ticketing people, and ideally by the time the snow hit there would be few if any cars in the emergency snow lanes.
    - Bedon292 11y ago
      The emergency did go into effect before the snow actually fell. Not 24 hours before, but most of the ticketing and towing was right before or immediately after the snow started falling.
- noodle 11y ago
  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.
- akgerber 11y ago
  I would be more inclined to have some empathy if my local drivers didn't think the city's bicycle lanes were an appropriate place to park for the next week because they are too lazy to dig out a parking space.
- digbyloftus 11y ago
  These fuckwits had advanced warning of the blizzard and still parked in a way to hinder emergency response capabilities. How you can paint them as innocent people who were fucked over is beyond me.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  3 hours after the declaration there was not a single flake of snow on the ground.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

thrownaway2424 11y ago

Drivers angered at being called out on their selfish behavior. In other breaking news, water confirmed to be still wet.

ihsw 11y ago

This is Washington DC (absolutely egregious omission by NYTimes, IMO), and not only were the roads blanketed with snow but exceedingly slippery a day earlier. See here for anecdotal reports regarding the city's absurd winter road strategy: https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/41xgqe/lmfao/ https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/41xgqe/lmfao/ And furthermore, thousands of tickets will be forgiven: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-to-forgive-thousands-of-parking-tickets-issued-during-snowstorm/2016/01/28/a4e342de-c5db-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-to-forgi...

maxerickson 11y ago
I dunno, not having much of a plan seems like an appropriate measure for storms that only happen every 5 years or so. Which sounds glib, but it takes a lot of equipment to be able to rapidly deal with snow on a lot of roads, equipment that would be sitting around rusting a lot of the time.
- mikeash 11y ago
  This is more like a 25-year or 50-year event, I'd say. I think this was the #2 or #3 biggest blizzard recorded here. It's ok for something like that to screw things up for a few days.

calvinbhai 11y ago

All tickets (for parking on snow emergency routes) have been voided http://dcist.com/2016/01/mayor_bowser_is_voiding_tickets_iss.php http://dcist.com/2016/01/mayor_bowser_is_voiding_tickets_iss... During snow emergencies, cities should work with parking garages to make overnight parking for cars, free. It'll solve a lot of problems. If cars are not removed past the emergency, ticket revenue can be shared with the garage

dustcoin 11y ago
>During snow emergencies, cities should work with parking garages to make overnight parking for cars, free. It'll solve a lot of problems. DC did in this case. The city warned about the emergency routes ahead of time, offered free parking at metro stations, and worked with private garages to offer $1/day parking.
thrownaway2424 11y ago
That's generous. Do you also think the city should "work with" hotels to provide free housing for people during snow storms, or is your outpouring reserved only for automobiles?
- jsmeaton 11y ago
  If they declared your house was in an emergency route and you had to move for a few days then yes.
  - restalis 11y ago
    In your reasoning you do take into account the houses being immobile and automobiles - well... mobile?
- Bedon292 11y ago
  Actually, the city did work with area motels to house homeless in order to get them off the streets, since they were out of space in the homeless shelters.
- 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gleenn 11y ago

Washington only charges $20 per day of impound? My motorcycle spent a 3 days in impound because someone moved in and needed moving-truck street space costing me over $600 with a few hundred for the ticket and then something closer to $100 a day for impound. Stupid San Francisco. Parking at only $1 is also incredible.

Bedon292 11y ago
How is this a thing? Were there posted signs that the moving truck was coming? Why did they not just have them look up the license plate and ask you to move? So many better solutions...

Bedon292 11y ago

The snow emergency was announced on Thursday a full day before the snow arrived. The emergency then went into effect Friday morning and the snow did not start until around lunch time, several hours later. There was not a single flake of snow in the first couple hours when most of the tickets were issues. People who are saying they got tickets for being 'snowed in' are blatantly misrepresenting what happened. They were parked illegally before the snow even fell, and had plenty of warning. Additionally, as others have said, parking was FREE at metro station garages around the area through Tuesday. And many area garages were also offering free or $1 parking. There is absolutely no excuse for being parked on the snow emergency routes.

rsp1984 11y ago
Maybe consider that many people just can't act that fast. Some may not have even been in town. The average time from when people heard about the announcement until the first snow was falling was probably just about a couple of hours. I would also assume that the free or $1 garage parking was full just a couple hours after the announcement.
- mikeash 11y ago
  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.
  - BostonEnginerd 11y ago
    Some of us do travel for a living and can be out of town for weeks on end. It does happen -- and where you're parked is an afterthought. You don't always get to pick which street you park on.

barney54 11y ago

DC is great at giving tickets, but as of yesterday main roads in DC still weren't completely cleared of snow. They are inept at the stuff that counts.