What's with reserving car spaces with chairs/cones/bins today ... ?

[Anonymous]

20:49 here - not DC, VA.

[Anonymous]

Just want to add that we have two small children and I am just recovering from abdominal surgery. If I had to park a block away from our house because someone else took our space in front, I would be pretty upset. The way things are right now on our street, there really is not much parking available except for those cars whose owners live on our street. It's not like people have been digging out additional spaces just for fun. Having said this, I have no idea what a person is to do when they have to park in a neighborhood other than their own. I suppose they will be forced to "steal" a spot from someone, right? Oh, and I had never before seen "markers", but they make sense to me. Sorry OP (and others)!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"You people" = large portions of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston, and I forget which other cities have been mentioned so far. That's a lot of people.

I don't really know that I want to mimic the behaviors of people from Cleveland or Pittsburgh . . . not exactly high class people. Boston maybe, but not the other two.

WOW. If it's a choice between the friendly people in Cleveland versus the "classy" people here...

[Anonymous]

I don't know . . . I've been to sporting events with Pittsburgh fans, and talk about white trash!

[Anonymous]

The spots on the street are public. People can try to reserve them, but they have no way to enforce it because they are PUBLIC spots. If they try to harm someone's car or physically confront someone for taking a public spot, then that person will be charged with assault or vandalism . . . and still won't have a parking spot. I"d rather be on the right side of the law with this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know . . . I've been to sporting events with Pittsburgh fans, and talk about white trash!

[Anonymous]

WHAT?!? I know very little about Pittsburgh and find your statement, rude, ignorant and judgmental. I would somehow imagine less of that elsewhere.

The notion of ANYONE in D.C, judging class strikes me as hysterical.

[Anonymous]

If people from Pittsburg and Cleveland are the ones who find "saving" public spots by putting various pieces of yard garbage out in the street, I think that speaks for itself. If you want to live in a trailer park, move to one. Don't bring your trashy ways to my city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just want to add that we have two small children and I am just recovering from abdominal surgery. If I had to park a block away from our house because someone else took our space in front, I would be pretty upset. The way things are right now on our street, there really is not much parking available except for those cars whose owners live on our street. It's not like people have been digging out additional spaces just for fun. Having said this, I have no idea what a person is to do when they have to park in a neighborhood other than their own. I suppose they will be forced to "steal" a spot from someone, right? Oh, and I had never before seen "markers", but they make sense to me. Sorry OP (and others)!

Boo hoo. Get a driveway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people from Pittsburg and Cleveland are the ones who find "saving" public spots by putting various pieces of yard garbage out in the street, I think that speaks for itself. If you want to live in a trailer park, move to one. Don't bring your trashy ways to my city.

[Anonymous]

Jesus Fucking Christ people. A few hours of shoveling does not entitle you to a spot for the rest of your lives. Are you really that lazy and stupid that you think you can own a public parking spot? You probably don't even know that your own behavior is causing the shortage of spaces in your neighborhood.

I'm going to drive around DC and collect all the fucking trash from the spots during the work day. I'm going to go to all the neighborhoods mentioned in this thread. Have fun at work on Tuesday!!

[Anonymous]

Why do I get the strong feeling that the last 30 or so posters don't live in the city at all, but live in awesome places with driveways such as Oakton? Or Kansas City, since I know the night crowd at DCUM now includes a lot of our BabyCenter sisters (not) popping off with their idiotic opinions on topics such as DC private schools.

Your opinion on this topic doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We had to dig out our entire street. The neighbors got together and did it. Twice. Why didn't you and your neighbors do the same? It probably would have added up to the same amount of work as all the individual spaces you dug.

OP here. Yes, PP, this is exactly what I meant about neighborliness. It's great that you live in an area like this. I think it's a sign of the more transient nature of the neighborhood I am in. And that it's rare to see people out together at the same time here. We are transient ourselves (renting) so I guess we haven't made the effort to band together that we could have done and hope to do when we move.

Here's a question for the pro-marking-out-my-territory people:

Is it okay to put a marker on a space that you have dug out even if it's not right in front of your house? If so, it's kind of weird for the homeowner to have someone else's chair in front of their house! But given there are a lot of houses here and everyone moved their car to the street, not everyone was able to park right in front of their house before the storm started.

Just trying to understand the etiquette rules for this illegal practice!

I grew up on the South Side of Pittsburgh, where the chair thing is common. (I was lucky to have off-street parking and so never had to employ a chair, before anyone wants to start blasting me.) Parking there is extremely tight. But the difference is, you don't have the number of renters and or the number of people moving in and out. People have lived in those neighborhoods for generations and know one another. So if there was a chair across the street, I know it's in front of Mrs. Sellaroli's, whose son works in the mill and came over Sunday to dig her out. There is no way I would move it.

To answer your question, no, you would only do this in front of your own home.

Ah, Mrs. Sellaroli! I know her well. But didn't her son get laid off from his job at the mill? I heard he's working at the waterfront now.

Yeah, the chair thing is pretty common in certain parts of Pittsburgh, although I grew up in a more neighborhoody part of Pittsburgh where we had garages and driveways and remembered being completely baffled by the lawnchairs when I first saw them. Not sure how often you go back, but these days the lawnchair strategy goes into effect Thurs - Sat, year round. Seems like the locals are just trying to prevent all those jagoffs who flock across the bridge from Pitt and CMU from parking in their spots while they go get boozed up at Jacks.

I get why they do this, but it is a custom, not a moral right or legal. There is a reason why some folk will not consider a home that relies on street parking. It sucks to play musical chairs in a game that is perpetually and severely short of chairs, but you don't just get to claim a public space because you want to.

Best part of this fight is how many people talk about how they are "forced" to take someone else's spot because someone took theirs. That's so hypocritical! Like you have more right to park there than someone else did! The street belongs to the city, you park there at the city's pleasure. You cleared your CAR out, you didn't invent or create the spot. Move out of the spot and it will be taken. You will take "someone else's" spot. This is legal and fair. Life goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people from Pittsburg and Cleveland are the ones who find "saving" public spots by putting various pieces of yard garbage out in the street, I think that speaks for itself. If you want to live in a trailer park, move to one. Don't bring your trashy ways to my city.

oh wow, wrote my response before I went on to read the lovely insults to my hometown (and me as "white trash" I guess). I'm on your "side" I guess, in that I don't reserve spots and think it's a bad practice. But I guess after that basic agreement you and I part ways, since you seem to think my hometown is so crappy. So here, I have a great idea:

How about PP above and all of the other posters throwing around white trash insults and the like remove those cones and then put them into your posterior? That would solve BOTH my irritation with folks who reserve spots and my irritation with people who say things online that they would never dare to say in person.

Also: nothing says "classy" like using terms like white trash! And it's not "your" city any more than it's mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to drive around DC and collect all the fucking trash from the spots during the work day. I'm going to go to all the neighborhoods mentioned in this thread. Have fun at work on Tuesday!!

Too funny. Maybe it would be more effective if you add, rather than remove, yard trash to the chairs, cones and whatnots already out there. Kind of like a lot where there's some trash and somehow other people think it's ok to dump their trash there. That might put a stop to this.

Really, though, the problem seems to be transplants bringing their lawn chair reservation practice to this area and teaching snowstorm newbies bad habits.