All posts in the topic abandoned cars (Short link)
Summary
- There are 12 posts — by 9 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Peter Fleck at 2007 Dec 08 21:32 UTC
Recently my girlfriend's car was towed for being abandoned, despite
the fact that the car was actually moved a block during the time when
it was supposedly abandoned. We're going to fight the ticket, of
course, and should win, but the incident has opened up my to the
problems of City Ordinance §478.250, which says that cars not moved
for 72 hours are considered abandoned.
We try to be environmentally conscious; my girlfriend takes the bus to
work most days, and I bike to work most days in the summer. Being
renters with no off-street parking and using public transportation,
it's not uncommon at all for our cars to not move for a week,
especially during the summer months. We still have cars, of course, to
run some errands, take trips, etc. I have to wonder, if the city wants
to encourage more biking and public transit use, those with cars might
run into this law like we did. 72 hours seems like an awfully short
time to consider a car abandoned.
I'm up sort of early this morning because I live next to a community
education center/school parking lot that was being plowed from around
3:30 this morning so folks could have a place off my street to park
for work or school or both. Being next to the U and a fair number of
businesses, we get a lot of folks parking in the neighborhood. I once
turned in a neighbor who had parked a car for several weeks blocking
a street access walk thinking it was abandoned. I also have no off-
street parking and I park the same place nearly every time by
sighting a spot on a tree trunk with a spot on my right front fender.
I nearly always move my car because I learned a similar law to the
one Jason and his girl break, when I was a stupid kid with a wreck of
a car going to college a ways from home.
We have problems with subsidized parking and I think the answer has
to be parking permits, not changing the laws to encourage long term
street parking. I'm seriously considering giving up my car and
joining HourCar, a local automobile sharing organization, but as long
as I have a car and must use off-street parking, I don't mind paying
for the parking spaces. If all the folks who take up space with their
cars in front of my house paid for the privilege, we'd more people
using transit and folks like Jason and his girlfriend would be in
court less often.
I'm sorry, Justin, for calling you Jason, and of course "wed'd more
people" is a lessor error, but sorry for that as well to the rest of
you. (Somehow this seems worse than most of my spelling and grammar
errors, so I'll burn my last post first thing this morning and suffer
not answering reflexively to a MIFer who takes issue with my post.
Maybe I won't even bother after thinking a moment about it; may not
have even bothered with Justin's post if I hadn't heard the roar of
the plow next door. Thank MPS for my outburst, folks.).
As a homeowner who generally parks in a garage, I'll give you another
perspective which is I'm not happy when you "camp" your car in front
of my house and never give me or my friends a chance to use the space
or block my street access walk long-term in the winter. We currently
have an old boat-style (read BIG and not beautiful) vehicle in front
of our street-access walk which only seems to move when it has to
(like during the snow emergency). It always seems to find its nesting
place again. I like the 72-hour law from this perspective.
I know who the car belongs to and will probably start with a chat
before I call the law. It's a nice couple that we get along with fine
in every other way.
Justin - my advice would be to be very sensitive to your neighbors
when parking your car for a while and rotate from home to home (within
a limited area, of course).
I like Bill's idea to have permit parking. I know here in Seward (near
Franklin), folks park and grab the #2 bus to the U.
But in the end, I see the poor transit system as the culprit. It is
very difficult to live without a car even in the inner city. I hope
ideas like the hour car (and Zip car) will make a difference. Zip Car
allowed us to become a one-car family at least. (If you work at the U,
you really should become a Zip car member. It's a great deal.)
Peter in Seward
Justin
How long should an abandoned car sit before its treated as one?
In your case I would think the ticketing officer could have noticed the car
registered to an address close by and just left a warning.
Somehow the city needs a 'one size fits all' rule/law/ordinance to deal with
cars that have an appearance of being abandoned.
Unless your girlfriends was towed for parking wrongly during the snow
emergency, I would have preferred that ticketing officer to have been doing
something more important than having supposedly abandoned cars towed.
Ron Leurquin
Nokomis East
Justin wrote:
Recently my girlfriend's car was towed for being abandoned, despite the fact
that the car was actually moved a block during the time when it was supposedly
abandoned. We're going to fight the ticket, of course, and should win, but the
incident has opened up my to the problems of City Ordinance §478.250, which
says that cars not moved for 72 hours are considered abandoned.
Wow. Lots of hate for street-parkers, I wasn't expecting it. I have
always thought that the lottery that is street parking was just
something you are used to if you live in the city.
If a vehicle has a valid tabs and isn't an obvious junker with broken
windows and a falling-off muffler, is it such a big issue? Is it so
crazy to think that someone could take public transit for three days?
Or a friend could visit from out of town and carpool for a while? I
would suggest a week as a proper time to declare a car abandoned. In a
week, I think you'd have people using or moving their car at least
once. 3 days? Not so much.
Most high volume street parking areas have permitting for resident
parking already. A stricter permitting system would be useful as it
would draw a clear line between what level of parking is acceptable.
I'd much rather have a permit and know I can park my car safely and
leave it for 5 days while I bike or bus to work.
And in this instance, my girlfriend's car was moved and used twice in
the 72 hour period it was chalked and supposedly abandoned. Once to a
different block on the other side of the street, even, to avoid the
snow emergency plowing! And when it was first chalked, it was parked
on the street one house down from our house, where we've been parking
for 6 months.
- Justin Heideman
- Seward
Justin writes:
Wow. Lots of hate for street-parkers, I wasn't expecting it. I have
always thought that the lottery that is street parking was just
something you are used to if you live in the city.
Me:
Related topic: disability spots on residential streets. Last year, two
neighbors across from each other got disability parking spots in front of their
houses. Both were justified: one was for a very elderly man (his wife drives,
but he doesn't get around well) and the other was for a stroke victim (whose
wife is also the chauffer).
It does really cramp available street spots (both couples have garages), but
that's life, and it could be me someday.
The craw-sticking things are two-fold:
1. The stroke victim and wife easily spend six months a year at their cabin, so
their now-private street spot sits vacant half the year.
2. When the city designated the spot in front of the elderly man's house, they
marked out a space nearly two cars long. (The couple has only one car.) So
there's a buffer zone of no-parkingness for everyone. (I suppose there's an
outside chance the wife needs room to parallel park, but I don't think that's
it.)
One thing I've been thinking about is: what happens to available street parking
as our population ages? Is there a limit to the number of disabled spots on any
given block? I seriously could see able-bodied street parkers being squeezed
quite a bit if demand for disabled spots goes up in future years - not a
tragedy, not unjustified even, but a potential issue. Anybody know the rules
here?
Cars left for more than 72 hours can be a major problem in some neighborhoods.
Heck, we can't even get a cop to ticket a car when we call in about it being
there for longer than that. I even sometimes put a colored sign on the
windshield asking the police to please tow this car, but get little action.
Justin might have been caught in the
With the help of a Council Member (who later went to jail for bribes he had
taken) the "Village Market" was given retroactive parking variance and
conditional use permit (CUP's) to have over a hundred businesses in an old
bakery building. That action has put probably at least 400 extra cars a day on
the blocks surrounding it.
In addition the City approved parking variances for PPL's headquarters for
parking for over 80 employees and those they serve, and a large apartment
building. All withing a two block area, and in addition to having a high-rise
designed for Elders only but now converted to public housing with a large
number of cars. An area with the Red&White Taxi headquarters whose drivers park
their cars on the street and leave them while they drive taxis, and in an area
where most houses are duplexes and triplexes that almost never had off street
parking when they were built. In addition the City Council just approved a
variances for an addition 75 unit supportive housing project one block away
from the Market. Several of these "variances" came because the applicants said
they were renting the same parking spaces at the Park Board owned Boys and
Girls Club. One would think the handpicked "planning staff" would remember this
repeated "renting" of the same spaces, even if they were real,
but apparently they have orders to justify in their reports and they follow
those orders whether the facts support them or not.
Some handicapped and elderly people in this area frequently have to park
their cars up to two blocks away from their homes because the City Planning
Department and Planning Commission largely ignores the problem.
A problem that almost universally is caused by the City NOT taking the
neighborhood residents input into consideration. Citizen Participation is
often considered to be, "We will listen to what you say if you agree with what
we want, and totally ignore you if you do not agree." Citizen engagement is
great as long as the Citizen "engaged" is supportive of an action, but there is
an immediate "divorce" if a discouraging word is heard. Advisory? Advise that
the City is correct in its action, or shut up and sit down is really the
message that is often sent.
Jim Graham,
Ventura Village
"It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely
uneducated."
Justin Heideman wrote:
> Wow. Lots of hate for street-parkers, I wasn't expecting it. I have
> always thought that the lottery that is street parking was just
> something you are used to if you live in the city.
>
> If a vehicle has a valid tabs and isn't an obvious junker with broken
> windows and a falling-off muffler, is it such a big issue? Is it so
> crazy to think that someone could take public transit for three days?
> Or a friend could visit from out of town and carpool for a while? I
> would suggest a week as a proper time to declare a car abandoned. In a
> week, I think you'd have people using or moving their car at least
> once. 3 days? Not so much.
>
> Most high volume street parking areas have permitting for resident
> parking already. A stricter permitting system would be useful as it
> would draw a clear line between what level of parking is acceptable.
> I'd much rather have a permit and know I can park my car safely and
> leave it for 5 days while I bike or bus to work.
>
>
Mark Anderson:
I agree with Justin. The 72 hour period is ridiculously short. There
have been times when I haven't driven my car for several weeks, and it
sounds like Justin and his girlfriend have perfectly good reasons not to
drive. Why does the city punish us for not driving? I kind of like it
when people leave their cars sitting on the street; it cuts down on
traffic and smog.
I disagree with parking permits. And not just because this city has too
many darn permits for everything already, although that's a reason too.
The street is supposed to be public; it doesn't belong to the residents
of the house it sits next to. I feel I have a right to park in this
city in places other than directly in front of my house. That kind of
defeats the purpose of having a car.
Why can't we just leave each other alone? What's the problem with
leaving a car on the street in one place for months at a time?
Different people have different lifestyles -- let them live.
At 9:14 AM -0600 12/7/07, Justin Heideman wrote:
>If a vehicle has a valid tabs and isn't an obvious junker with broken
>windows and a falling-off muffler, is it such a big issue? Is it so
>crazy to think that someone could take public transit for three days?
>Or a friend could visit from out of town and carpool for a while? I
>would suggest a week as a proper time to declare a car abandoned. In a
>week, I think you'd have people using or moving their car at least
>once. 3 days? Not so much.
I imagine that one could call the local police precinct and alert
them to a particular car, and ask that it not be towed for the
several days in question. I'd like to hear what happens when someone
tries this.
Stolen cars are occasionally abandoned on my street. One sat for
more than 2 weeks, with our neighbors and us each casually assuming
the car belonged to friends of the other. Eventually, we compared
notes, called the precinct and the car was towed that day.
Peter Fleck: "As a homeowner who generally parks in a garage, I'll give you
another perspective which is I'm not happy when you "camp" your car in front
of my house and never give me or my friends a chance to use the space
or block my street access walk long-term in the winter."
I'm really amazed at this. I've never heard that a homeowner "owns" the parking
space in front of the house. Am I missing something? I'm a homeowner too, but I
never thought I could commandeer the space in front of my house. Now I have a
handicap parking space, which means I do commandeer the space in front of my
house. When I get carted off to the nursing home (kicking and screaming) or
when I cork off, it will no longer be a handicapped space.
BTW, David, the city always makes a handicap space by using the whole lot front
as that space. I don't know why, but they do.
On Dec 7, 2007 9:14 AM, Justin Heideman <email obscured>> wrote:
> Wow. Lots of hate for street-parkers, I wasn't expecting it. I have
> always thought that the lottery that is street parking was just
> something you are used to if you live in the city.
Hate? I went back over the thread and certainly didn't think anyone
was emanating any hate. I guess if you don't like what you're hearing,
you could construe it that way.
When I rented for 10+ years (right across the street from where I
live) I pretty much felt the same way as I do now. I had no off-street
parking and we tried to keep our cars in front of our house. It wasn't
always possible but if I had to park in front of another residence, I
would make sure to move it in a day or two. I just considered it
courtesy. I sure would not have left my car blocking someone's street
access through the snow in the winter for any length of time.
There is a 72-hour law in place. I can see merit in a 5-day law from
the standpoint of people usually work during the week and we should
encourage bus and bike use. I also like the permit idea because I'm
not in favor of my street providing parking spaces for outliers who
want to get easy access to the #2 bus. (This has also become an issue
around light-rail stations.)
The answer I'd most like to see is a better transit system to make it
easier to live in Minneapolis and not own a car.
Peter
Seward Neighborhood
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