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Boston snow emergency, parking ban to end at 5 p.m.

The Lawn Chair Incident

Per the mayor's office. And you know what that means: 48 hours of space-saving frenzy (and then it all stops, right?).

Ed. note: Video NSFchairs at the end.

H/t JR Strauss.

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Comments

Downright terrifying...

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You mean there are a people in South Boston that can't afford garages? Oh well, I guess the townies should have paid more attention in school instead of breaking into cars and arguing about who the toughest boxer is.

Time to take my BMW out of the garage and do some donuts.

- The Original SoBo Yuppie

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n/t

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That video was "milk out the nose" funny. I don't want to give away the ending, but for males of a certain age, the soundtrack is oh so appropriate.

Watch that video!

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... so much for hopes of a new perspective.

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Put it on a referendum and all you lazy people who do not shovel and take someone's spot will lose big time.
You people won't even shovel in front of your condo so why would you shovel a parking space?

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This is about spots on public streets, not about spots that belong to any specific individual..

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That says spot saving is illegal. There is none and all you no shovel owners know it.

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City Ordinance, Chapter 16, section 12-8 prohibits littering.
City Ordinance, Chapter 23, section 5 requires property owners to keep the sidewalks and streets adjacent to their property free of debris

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Is that all you can come up with?

Littering? and unless you are fortunate enough to shovel out a spot "adjacent to your property" how can a homeowner be responsible for "debris" in front of their house?

Get your State Rep to sponsor a bill specifically towards space savers. I'll bet no one would touch it with a ten foot pole.

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It's already illegal to occupy the street with anything other than a registered vehicle having a resident parking sticker. You can't build a shed on the street to store your lawnmower, for example. There's no need for a law specifically about space savers. How would you even write such a law?

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Just a tiny reminder from suburb-in-urb here that not all parts of Boston have resident-permit parking (the other day, I was amazed to see a Hyde Park resident sticker on somebody's car - I didn't know such a thing even existed, but it's probably like the Roslindale and West Roxbury stickers, meant for people who live next to the commuter-rail stops).

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Boston parking regulations addressed here, and no, it's NOT covered under littering/debris.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/snow/parking/

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... the difference between a website put together by city hall staff, and laws and regulations duly enacted by the legislature?

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It's a parking REGULATION on an official city website for residents. Says don't use space savers after 48 hours. Translation: they are allowed up until then.

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It's not actually a regulation, despite what the website says. Real laws are written by the city council, and codified to certain standards.

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I shovel the sidewalk in front of my place. I shovel the walk in front of my neighbor's place. I shovel out the fire hydrant up the street. I shovel out the space my car was parked in.

I never, ever, ever, try to save a parking space when I'm not using it.

And when I see someone else trying to use some idiotic space saver, I toss it to the curb.

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Someone who wasn't parked on the street the night before the storm, and therefore didn't have a space to shovel out.....

.... when do you think he or she should be allowed to park on the street again?

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then you can steal somebody's spot they SHOVELED out.

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Now you cite the law that makes it legal to save a parking space for 72 hours after a storm. And 'splain why it's not legal to save spaces year round?

The mayor directing the police to not enforce the law for 72 hours after a storm does not mean it's legal.

If a mayor said, "You know, when you gotta go, you gotta go, so I'm going to direct the police not to ticket for public urination," that wouldn't mean it's legal to piss on the sidewalk.

I shovel. I pull my car out of the space. Within 10 minutes, someone else pulls into the space. When I come back, I drive around, find a space, and park in it. Why is this such a problematic concept for some people?

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If there is no law against something, it is legal. You don't need to go to law school to know that.

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There is no law specifically against erecting a fence around a parking space on a public street, and padlocking it for one's private use. There is no law, for that matter, specifically against building a garage on the public street. And yet both are clearly illegal.

There is also, by the way, no law against removing the item that someone else used to block a parking space.

And democracy has nothing to with it, FWIW; the same principle (that which is not specifically prohibited is legal) is true in all forms of government.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_chair#Criticism

The use of space savers effective reduces the number of available spaces and prevents an important group of "transient users" (like visitors, delivery vehicles, or home care nurses) from using the spaces. Also, there's no guarantee that the person who took "your" space wasn't someone who had their own space "stolen" by someone else. And assuming they are just a short-term visitor, it makes even less sense to expect them to spend two hours shoveling out a new space.

Consider this example of why space saving is problematic:

6 am: Huge snowstorm ends
8 am: Resident shovels their car out and leaves for work (and leaves a space-saver)
1 pm: Home care worker move the space-saver and parks in the space, which they have to do because, being a high-parking-demand area, all spaces either contain cars or space-savers (assuming everyone who shovels out a space chooses to use one).
6 pm: Resident returns home to their parking space having been taken and begrudgingly shovels out another space or (more likely) moves someone else's space saver).
9 pm: Home care worker leaves, replacing the space saver they moved.

Now the original resident has effectively removed a legal parking space from the street (occupying both the space consumed by their car and the one consumed by their space-saver). Assuming this happens a few times on any given road, eventually there aren't going to be enough spaces left on the street for every commuter to return home, even if they're all willing to shovel a space before parking so as to avoid having their tires slashed.

Limited on-street parking ONLY WORKS because of the transient nature of the spaces. There aren't enough of them for spaces to be "reserved."

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I not sure if the city is "allowing" space savers, enforcement will be difficult. The folks who work for the city that would be removing "spot savers" will be busy removing snow for the next few days. After that, spot saver removal will probably begin.

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On how many other technically illegal traditions Walsh will support.

So register your toddler early for the Longshoreman's Union, and forget about applying to the Probation Department.

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As mayor he'll have no power over the probation dept or the Massport docks. Thanks for playing though.

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The mayor does not have the power to void or invent city ordinances. That's the legislative branch of government, i.e. the City Council.

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People get your facts straight before posting stupid comments. The Mayor has no control over those departments.

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We had an opportunity to get a mayor who can take Boston to the level (read SF, DC, NYC, London). Instead we got another life long townie....sigh.

- The Original SoBo Yuppie

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I voted for the guy, but please, he's just a townie of another sort - born and bred out here in Roslindale, moved next door to West Roxbury. Maybe people who don't live out in Parkwayland don't realize it, but there's a townie spirit in these parts, too (a glance at the commuter-rail bridge over LaGrange Street or the mural on the side of the West Roxbury Pub will tell you that).

And even though I'm not a townie, doesn't mean I don't think one can do a good job running the city. Ray Flynn had his problems as mayor (and after he left office), but he helped heal the racial divisions that were tearing the city apart (well, up until Charles Stuart, at least). The same sort of people apoplectic about Wu voting for Linehan as city-council president were also pretty upset about Menino becoming city council president - and Menino, for all his faults, turned out to be one of the country's most progressive mayors after he moved over to the corner office when Flynn left.

I'm also not so sure we should be comparing Boston to SF and DC anyway - the former has turned into a Manhattan-style enclave of the very rich and the very poor and the latter looks like it's headed in that direction as well. Maybe you think that's OK, after all, the poors will continue to serve up your lattes at that new Starbucks, but some of us don't.

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Who is this savior you speak of?

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