Dear Editor:
The decision to implement alternate side of the street parking regulations on Tuesday, Feb 4th for plowing purposes, following a snow storm that didn’t end until late in the afternoon the day before, had many people questioning what the real motive was.
If street cleaning (plowing) was the primary goal, an attempt would have been made to plow the complete length of the street during the allotted one hour time, maybe using multiple plows. But instead of giving a pass to those who could not get their cars moved, the ticket agent was so busy issuing tickets that the single plow barely completed half the length of Bloomfield St, leaving a major portion of the street untouched. There was plenty of empty space on the uptown blocks for snow removal if the plow had made it there.
This scenario was played out on all streets affected by normal Tuesday parking enforcement.
This is a walking town. How about using the plows to focus on clearing the corners so people can walk freely in the crosswalk. Use some of that 25 feet from the curb space so eagerly used to issue tickets for violators to deposit the snow and slush from the crosswalk. Why, because there’s no revenue in it? The crosswalks are a mess and dangerous.
And one more thing to consider: Uptown residents don’t have the luxury of moving their cars to nearby low cost municipal lots on snow days, and in recent storms the private lots are full.
Instead, the decisions and actions by the Parking Utility to issue tickets that ultimately help impede the task of snow removal is another example why the Utility is held in such low regard and isolated from the community.
Anonymous