Hey, there! Log in / Register
Space saver with an explanation
By adamg on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 9:42am
W.E. David Halbert took this photo this morning:
I am morally opposed to space saving, but give my East Boston neighbor credit for politeness.
Neighborhoods:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Body on pain?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzF7II6oEW4&feature...
I am morally opposed to space
I bet the photographer doesn't have to park his car on the street and dig it out. Anyway, what exactly would the moral grounds be?
Basic fairness
Actually I was parked right behind this person's spot, on the same one-way street in East Boston that I have lived in for years.
As for my moral opposition it begins and ends with this: NO ONE OWNS THE STREET! I hate space saving, always have - always will, never do it, and have no problems arguing the point with anybody.
That said I would rather have a verbal disagreement with someone about it or support a city administration that actually had the stones to take a legit stand on the issue (rather than do just enough to get a puff piece in the local press), than go around being "that guy" and antagonize my differently minded neighbors by tossing their chairs, tables, trash cans, etc. into the middle of the road or up on the sidewalk where they belong.
If everyone shovels & no one saves a space, the spaces don't magically disappear. Space-saving is institutionalized urban terrorism. As an old professor used to say, "just my thoughts."
If no one owns the street...
...then, by definition, the State is responsible for cleaning snow from parking spaces. As long as the State shirks that responsibility, and citizens must shovel their own snow, they ought to own the product of their labor (in this case, a cleared parking spot).
Your moral opposition is misplaced. If you expect that spaces are all first-come, first-served, then they are a public good, and ought to be maintained by the city gov. You should be having verbal disagreements with city hall, not residents who spend 2-3 hours shoveling, go to the grocery store, and return with some moocher taking up their now-cleaned space.
What "stand" would you suggest the city administration take? "Sorry you spent your own time with a shovel and a bad back, but thanks for helping out the city!"
Sorry, but your argument holds no water (or snow)
Typical Libertarian: "I expended minimal effort for the betterment of society, WHERE'S MY COOKIE?!"
The "state" (in this case, the city agencies funded by tax dollars that serve as a proxy of the citizenry and perform services paid for by that citizenry) does have a responsibility to maintain the streets. That's the reason your car is plowed in -- so that "the state" can maintain the thoroughfare.
What "the state" isn't responsible for is the cleaning of private vehicles (you know, the thing on the street that IS your property) and the cleaning of space occupied for those vehicles. On larger roads, this conundrum is usually mitigated by the snow-emergency parking restrictions you all love to bitch about or alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules that Boston can't seem to wrap its dense skull around. It's simple: The city can't clean the space if your car's there... so move it.
When you shovel your car out of a spot (note: you're not shoveling out "a spot"), you're not claiming some patch of land in the name of your personal Kingdom of Douchebagia, you're removing snow and removing a vehicle occupying public space. On a snowless day, you're not entitled to a spot just because you parked there a day before and you don't "claim" it by virtue of parking in it -- you're just parking and leaving a public space, and anyone who follows you is doing the same.
This is exactly why cones, chairs, garbage cans and any other "placeholder" items I see on my block are immediately set curbside once it's time to park. Everyone who parks on the street during a snowstorm knows the consequences of that action and has to shovel out their car. It doesn't matter if you park in that space or any other once that occurs.
If there was a point in that rambling mess...
...I sure as hell missed it. Maybe your hatred for people who support your freedoms got you in a tizzy, I'm unsure. I have no idea what "cookie" you are even talking about.
If you are talking about metered parking on a big street, with snow emergency signs, etc., I agree with you, you are not morally or ethically entitled to the spot in which you left your car. However, the OP appears to be referring to on-street residential parking. Your car is on the street because you live there, and you may have no other options. In a legal sense, you are right that street parking is not entitled; however, in a moral sense, if you park in a spot by your house, are forced to leave your car there during the storm, then wake up and spend a few hours moving the plowed snow out in order to get out, you are absolutely entitled to continue to use that spot. If you have a problem with this, I suggest you petition the city to assist in snow *removal* from residential side streets.
Your last paragraph gives away your true self. I'm sure you are super-self-satisfied with whatever personal credos you espouse, but your actions reveal you to be anti-social and bitter, and a free-rider to boot. You really just move the placeholders with no regards for your neighbors? You decide to simply benefit from the labor of others without so much as a note or a thank you? Heck, even the OP doesn't go that far. I'd write something along the lines of "typical liberal: talks the talk, can't walk the walk", but I doubt most liberals, or people in general, would act in such a manner.
A Libertarian never defended a right...
that wasn't his own. The "cookie" is the piece of public property and/or services you and your ilk always deem it necessary to take away from the greater society for the benefit of the individual. Like children, you're always screaming for it.
On-street residential parking is NOT something to which any one person is entitled. Those who utilize on-street residential parking are not "entitled" to a space simply because they removed snow from his or her car and removed the car from said space. As I said earlier, every resident of the city that utilizes on-street residential parking is in the same predicament and has to perform the same act. You are no more "entitled" to the spot you leave open than a city plow is for cleaning out said spot during alternate-side-of-the-street parking days. The people who clean off their cars and who are disappointed when the spot they vacated is used by another resident ALWAYS have an option: It's called parking in another spot and walking the extra distance. Surprisingly, people do this all the time even when there's not snow on the ground.
Your last paragraph -- last two, actually -- is very telling as well. Moreso than the "liberals" you decry, you feel "entitled" to certain public items and services to which you have no exclusive propriety. The "anti-social" and "bitter" folks are the ones who see a neighbor on their block perhaps once every two years, shovel out only their own vehicle instead of making a building- or block-wide effort to clean out -- as myself and my neighbors do -- and then think it's "their" labor that opened "thier" spot. Wrong. ALL OF US labor to dig our cars out and thus ALL OF US have the right to park in whichever spot we choose. We don't steal public space by placing our detritus in it like a little kid wiping spittle on the crust of "his" slice on school pizza day. Free-rider my eye. It must be awfully cozy inside that one-person bubble you call your world. Get to know your neighbor, get to understand how a society functions and then get back to me with your complaints about how I clear litter from my street.
Great Argument!
Way to go JPSouth and Glibertarian! That's the best tête-a-tête I've seen here in a while. Entertaining and the best two arguments on either side of the space-saving controversy as I've seen this year. Intellectually I agree with JPSouth but speaking for my selfish spine, I stick that traffic cone out in "my" spot for as long as I can get away with. That's right, I'm a hypocrite.
Two points to add in are: 1/ the fact that even when there is no snow there aren't enough on-street spaces in East Boston (or at least in my neighborhood) for all the cars, and 2/ When we get snow like this we lose a number of spaces on each block due to piles of snow that get mounded up. Not to say anything about the curb cuts on the corners that get lost under those mounds. Opposite-side parking rules that permit plowing up to the curb or some sort of plan to try and get rid of some of the piled up plow-snot to alleviate the issue might be a good idea. In fact it would be required in order to avoid street violence when/if they grow a pair, get rid of the 48 hour rule and collect the space savers immediately.
The other thing would be to actually enforce the building codes that require that new buildings have off-street parking of some sort, as opposed to giving variances to
whoever wants it, friends/donors to the mayor's election campaign and/or city employees/part-time developers. ...sigh... I guess I'll just stick with being a hypocrite and my traffic cone.THINKING THAT SHOVELING A
THINKING THAT SHOVELING A PARKING SPACE SIZE AREA OF SNOW IS ACTUALLY WORK IS THE FUNNY THING, "POOR ME, IT SNOWED, WAAAA"
SPACE SAVING MAKES YOU A COMPLETE WUSS END OF STORY,
I THOUGHT PEOPLE IN BOSTON THOUGHT OF THEMSELVES AS TOUGHER THAN THIS
2 more cents: the giving tickets by cops for "shovel backs" into the street as they call it is the true theft of justice here, Boston metro area planning code and city services are some of the most ridiculous and pathetic i've ever seen. they should absolutely allow it, contingency plan for it, plow it away like so many other SMARTER local govs who receive ample snow every winter do, this happens a bunch around here no??
no 3: and "benefit from the labor of others"?!?!? wow man, poor you, but UNLESS I DROVE MY CAR FROM FLORIDA, I JUST DUG MINE OUT TOO, WHEN YOU GET TO THE NEXT SPOT YOU GO TO, MAYBE YOU CAN PARK THERE, it's probably open, just move my disgusting, cracked, leaking garbage outta the way doodguy and ya in,
JEEEEEEEEEZUSSSSSS
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/allston_bright...
Color clip art and all...
Color clip art and all...
Citation
It's "spent".
Your right!!!
Bad grammar like that puts my head on pain. its' like english isnt even their first language or something.
It's East Boston... of course
It's East Boston... of course English isn't their first language.
internet nuance
differentiating naivete from sarcasm is put my head on pain
Grammar Police
Grammar Police: The period goes inside the quotation mark.
Damn, you're right!
Damn, you're right!
That's a matter of style, not
That's a matter of style, not grammar. Get off my lawn!
You're also
You're also right!
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/punctuation-errors...
Three Hours?
I call BS. I shovelled out a long driveway and the sidewalk in 1 1/2 hours.
I am a healthy and
I am a healthy and able-bodied individual and it took my equally healthy and able boyfriend 40 minutes to shovel out his car. If this person is elderly or has another physical disadvantage, they may not be exaggerating all that much.
indeed
It took me about 30 minutes to shovel my stoop and sidewalk yesterday afternoon and another 15 to do the same for one of my elderly neighbors. Three college students approximately half my age took the same amount of time to shovel out one of their cars: it's a harder job than shoveling the sidewalk.
I wonder how many of the Zipcars in the neighborhood haven't been rented since Tuesday night: there gets to be kind of a game of chicken going on, waiting for someone else to have to shovel the damn things out.
Snowplow snow is brutal
Man, I'd rather shovel a 100' driveway with fresh snow than deal with 10-15' of snowplow crud. It's like shoveling cement. And no, this is not an offer to shovel your driveway/walk. ;-)
Out here in I-495 land the snow was just a little heavy, but still pretty fluffy. I went snowshoeing at noon and there was 18" of nice stuff. I heard the stuff around Boston was a lot heavier to start with, and after the plow throws it into a pile, it would end up like cement.
3 hours is probably a stretch, maybe 2?? Gotta give him politeness points.
An apology from our snowplow guy
Yesterday, as I was digging out my car and driveway, a guy in a pickup with a plow on it kept going up and down our street. Each time, of course, he partially plowed in my work.
On his third pass, he stopped and apologized: "I'm doing the best I can," he said. "I know," I said and thanked him.
Dear Alex_Toth
I was out shoveling 3 times yesterday for 1.5 hours each time. I have 2 good arms and 2 good legs, have lived here my whole life and been shoveling all that time. I'm not a slouch and I'm not lazy. And it took 3 excursions at 1.5 hours each. That did include shaking the snow off as much of a 20 foot tree as I could reach so the power lines wouldn't get pulled off the house; cleaning off a 6-foot bush to get at the cars; cleaning off 2 suv's; clearing out an early-morning mishap that left a 5-foot snow mound in my driveway; and, saving the best for last, de-construcing a 4-foot high by 3-foot wide wall of plough-created snow-cement.
psaving parking places
At least you know this person has no intention of harm. It was not a violent warning. It was a request. As for some of the comments about english. I guess the native americans thought that about the settlers. BTW..they never learned the language of the land..they kept the language where they came from.
I lift snow up and I put it
I lift snow up and I put it down.
I lift snow up and I put it down.
I lift snow up and I put it down.
Ha
Exactly the joke shared with neighbors as we were shoveling last evening. Needs the accent for full effect.