With more of us working from home and driving less, in diligent adherence to COVID-19 safety restrictions, moving a vehicle daily poses one more “source of stress, anxiety, and unexpected expenses for Duluthians,” city resident Shana Aue had written to Duluth city councilors, prompting the requirement’s inclusion and support for her suggestion to suspend in the editorial.
The unexpected expenses come from having to pay parking tickets, which “may not seem like much,” Aue wrote, but, “Many families in Duluth are (already) struggling right now” and are “counting every dollar. ...
“With alternate side parking in effect year-round, any truly abandoned vehicles become obvious in no more than one week,” she further said. “After I got a ticket today, I brushed the snow off my car and moved it forward one space. I do not see a point to this.”
Duluth Chief Administrative Officer Noah Schuchman responded to Aue’s note and to the editorial, stating in an email of his own to the council that there are many points behind the city’s 24-hour parking ordinance.
The local law encourages regular turnover of public on-street parking, making spaces more regularly available, he said. It discourages storing vehicles on city streets, including those that aren’t running and contribute to blight. And it cuts down on the need to tow vehicles in the way of street work, snow removal, and other operations, among reasons he cited.
“Even with the ordinance in place, we receive and address many complaints about unmoved vehicles. There would be many more (complaints) without (the ordinance),” Schuchman wrote. “As we continue to move forward with the new snow emergency procedures, the ordinance will be crucial to its success. Since our planned procedures include the distribution of informative brochures on vehicles in advance of an impending snow event, they'll be more likely to receive them if they are visiting their vehicles regularly. The requirement to move vehicles each day also directly supports the goals of the snow emergency initiative. The Administration has worked to be consistent in messaging.”
Fair enough, but the city’s plans to begin declaring snow emergencies are on hold indefinitely due to COVID-19. Spending $500,000 to buy and install some 2,800 signs along 120 miles of snow-emergency routes was wisely scuttled this year, with city revenues shrinking and city budgets tightening as a result of the pandemic’s crippling economic impacts.
While Schuchman is correct that a temporary suspension of the 24-hour parking ordinance would fly in the face of recent messaging from City Hall and could cause confusion, the many parking tickets described by Aue suggest there’s already confusion over 24-hour parking, alternate-side parking, and other rules and laws.
As the earlier editorial also argued, suspending the 24-hour parking ordinance would be welcomed by Duluthians already overburdened by health restrictions, job losses, and an uncertain future filled with not-for-the-better new realities. Once this emergency has passed, and once the city’s plan for declaring snow emergencies can be implemented, the 24-hour parking law can be put back in place — for all the good reasons Schuchman detailed.
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November 19, 2020 at 11:00PM
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Our View: City defends its 24-hour parking ordinance - Duluth News Tribune
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