It’s the end of a long day at work, you’ve made it across the ship canal bridge, down the morass of 45th Street backups, maneuvered through the obstacle course of traffic circles and finally arrive on your own street. But as you creep past your house, you’re frustrated to see there are no available parking spaces close to home. As you gaze longingly at the spot in front of your house, your spot, you note with a bit of bile that that same car has been parked there for over week!
Now, you happen to know that Seattle’s parking code (Municipal Code 11.72.440, to be exact) stipulates that a “No person shall park a vehicle on any street or other municipal property for a period of time longer than seventy-two (72) hours” so what do you do?
For many people, the answer is obvious: drop a dime on the car, and within a day or two, you should see a big orange sticker stuck to the car’s window letting the driver know if they don’t move their vehicle off the block soon, it will be “SUBJECT TO CITATION, IMPOUNDMENT AND STORAGE AT THE OWNER’S EXPENSE” (sic all caps).
I would like to plead with you not to do that. Yes, it’s the law. Yes, you have a right to do it, but I would like to make the case that it isn’t very neighborly.
First, hopefully we can agree on the purpose of the law: it is not, I don’t think, meant to ensure that you have access to a parking spot in front of your house. Rather, it’s intended to provide a means of clearing out abandoned cars. If there’s another purpose, I can’t think of what it would be. (Notably, the current law, passed in 2000, replaced a previous ordinance that limited parking to 24-hours!)
With that in mind, I want to say out the outset that if you genuinely believe the vehicle is abandoned, or that it is stolen, then yes, by all means report it. I would hope, though, that before you called the police, you might first take the less drastic step of leaving a note on the car’s windshield asking if it is owned. Give them a few days to answer, what’s the harm?
So what’s the harm in calling it in?
First, there’s the obvious: moving one’s car from one block to the next just to avoid a ticket is a pain, and removing that big orange sticker isn’t easy (you’ll be scraping with putty knife and liberally dousing in rubbing alcohol for a while).
And that’s assuming you see the sticker and deal with it in time. In a conversation on this topic on the Wallingford / Fremont Community Page on Facebook, one person described the horror show that unfolded when she was house-sitting for a Wallingford neighbor and left her car for a week. She didn’t notice the tag in time, and the car was towed. She didn’t have enough money in her bank account to get it out of impound, and as the days passed, the cost increased. By the time she had enough money to get it out, the city had auctioned it off.
That’s a stiff penalty for leaving a car in one parking spot for a week.
And there are a many reasons someone may leave a car in one place: as Seattle traffic has become increasingly difficult, and the environment increasingly imperiled, a growing number of people are making the effort bike, walk or use public transportation to get to and from work. These people may go a week or more without using their car. Someone may go on vacation for a couple of weeks. Certainly they could have someone move their car from one spot to another every three days while they’re gone, but really, what good does that do anybody?
The city generally will not orange-tag a car for staying one spot longer than 72-hours in our neighborhood unless a neighbor makes a report. Please, be a sport, don’t narc on your neighbors just because you want their parking space.
If only there was a way to reserve a spot in front of each house for the homeowner or something. Like stripe the curb one colour. But all in all, I never thought about it this way.
What are your thoughts on the proposed zone parking permits?
Streets are public property and are not owned by homeowners. You can rent a garage or parking spot if you really need to consistently have the same spot. People who have difficulty walking may apply for a disabled permit spot on the street.
We know streets aren’t owned by homeowners. This isn’t news. No one said they didn’t.
It isn’t very neighborly? Boo-hoo. Neither is leaving your trash in public spaces. So you are not fortunate enough to have a driveway of your own? Not an issue. It seems most of the cars that get complained about are parking for weeks-on-end in the highest congestion areas of our neighborhoods. Leaving your car for a few days or more? Park on a street that is LESS congested – SURE, it might mean you have to, um, walk a little farther.. But get it straight — YOU are the person breaking the law/using public spaces for storage of a car you are not using…
I’ve been writing this long enough that I can anticipate most of the responses I’ll get, including this one, but it’s still the one I dread the most. I know there are people out there that that consider being neighborly unimportant (“boo-hoo”), but it still depresses me to be reminded that they live nearby.
Agree with you, Jordan. Such is the state of the ‘hood. I guess we, boo-hoo, mourn the demise of neighborly discourse.
If a person is storing a car on a public street for weeks at a time because they are “making the effort bike, walk or use public transportation to get to and from work,” then I suggest they get rid of their car altogether. Using car2go/ReachNow/Budget to access a car only when it’s needed saves money.
I agree.. or park it in a driveway or garage.( Coment re comments in action, effect etc..)
Amen to this letter. Plenty of people use their car only every 7 to 14 days, for shopping & hiking. Forcing someone to constantly move their car around every 72 hours doesn’t actually increase the number of available parking spaces in a 3 block radius.
It’s never been easier to go carless. If you aren’t using your car for two weeks at a time, you can get rid of it and use Zipcar, Reach, Uber, Lyft or rent a car or take a cab.
Reducing the amount of available parking in the neighborhood just so you can have your own car close at hand the few times a year you want to drive is not very neighborly either.
I didn’t own a car for years and simply reserved a Zipcar when I wanted to hike or go to Ikea. It was easy and frugal, both for myself and the community. I finally bought a car because I started to drive daily because of other constraints, and I think the worst thing about it is that I’m adding to the congestion and number of cars parked in the neighborhood.
If I found I wasn’t driving for weeks at a time, I’d ditch the car. There is so little parking on my block, I’d feel quite guilty appropriating it for my constant car storage.
Honestly, I think it’s best if residents minimize their on street parking and those spaces are available for short term parking for visitors to the neighborhood. Most residents have alternatives for car storage – buy a house with space, make some space on your property, or use alternatives to car ownership.
I’d rather there be a space for my elderly parents to park when they visit, or for my neighbors’ out of town guests.
I suspect if everyone wasn’t trying to store a car on the street – or sometimes two or three – that the kind of situation described here where a housesitter not clued in to the rules gets their car towed is less likely.
Is anybody really surprised by this development? With the City Council’s war on cars and the permitting of developers to build apartment blocks with little or no parking, this is the result (think Phinney Ridge and along Stone Way).
How “neighborly” is it of new apartment dwellers who move into an apartment.with no available parking, to bring along a car or two?
Please don’t call the single family homeowners un-neighborly for not accommodating those who sign a lease in a “car free” building. And please, no NIMBY name calling!
Home owners are responsible for the sidewalks in front of their homes, the parking strips, keeping trees pruned , any number of things as well as paying taxes . And yes we also watch out for all cars when we can. Cars parked that long are usually not close or even known neighbors. In my experience they are more often abandoned. Out of the neighborhood parkers often use no good sense parking just close enough to a driveway that causes two parking places to be used. diminishing the parking available. Please if you are going to park on someone else’s block, park conciously.
What about the SFH who park boats and massive pickup trucks outside their homes, consuming more than a car’s worth of parking? My feeling is if a property owner wants free, indefinite, exclusive parking, build your own parking facility on your property! If that’s not feasible, then don’t complain when the publicly-subsidized storage isn’t readily available.
Thanks to Doug, Brock & Bill for real names and faces. ( comments re comments still in effect)
We have a Google group for our block that extends to the surrounding blocks. When someone notices an unrecognized car sitting for a week or longer they send an email to the Google group asking if it belongs to anyone. Several people almost always jump in with more info and it’s easy to decide what to do. It’s either “it’s my aunt’s car and she’s gone to Vancouver for the week.” Or, no one knows who it belongs to and it hasn’t moved in 2 weeks. Talking first seems to be working out and the group sees it as neighborly.
I think both Rory and Becky make good points. We have a “triangle” email list for communicating with immediate neighbors. But as Rory states, people who live on the street know which car belongs to which neighbor. Calling a car in is a last resort.
I recently cleaned out our garage to make room for a “project car” that shouldn’t have taken space on the street. There are probably quite a few garages in the ‘hood that could be cleaned out and organized to accommodate a car.
This is a great idea. We just leave notes and talk it out, but this is a easier way to ask the neighbors without loitering outside on a rainy day. I have gotten to know all the people who park in “MY” spot in front of my house, some of then do live in apartments around the corner, and we’ve worked it out (basically, don’t take up two spaces with one car, park smart) by GASP talking to each other. Because that’s how we’re going to fix this mess.
It’s good to have some reverence for the law, but best in realistic perspective. This one a good example of a law that isn’t meant to be taken seriously. If the city started rigorously enforcing it, it would quickly be repealed, because parking for more than 72 hours is common and reasonable. We’re in fact encouraged not to drive, so it’s preposterous to think that the city would impose a legal requirement on us all to drive every 3 days.
I drive my car very 72 hours. I take it with me when I leave town. When I didn’t drive that frequently, I didn’t have a car. The law does not seem unreasonable to me.
All the cars on my block seem to move that frequently. The people who drive less use their garages.
I think a note is nice on day 4 and if they have not moved it after day 5, drop the bomb. I err on the side of following the law vs making up some kind of logic knot that seems to absolve me from following it. Of course, if you were to start a movement to overturn the law, I would support you and when the law was repealed, we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone breaking it or inventing constructs that absolve our lack of adherence to it.
Better not ever have to leave town for a few days, or have surgery, or break a leg, or any of the other unforeseen reasons that you might not be able to drive for a week or two. I’m fortunate to have a driveway, but there have been many times in my life that I couldn’t use my car for a while, and if I had no driveway it would be on the street. I’m horrified that a neighbor would even consider having my car impounded. I’ve been here for25 years. This has always been a kind neighborhood.
Jordan, rather than encourage wasting publicly-subsidized resources, why not promote something more constructive?
1. Just give up the car! That’s been my ongoing solution for 12 years, and it’s only gotten easier with improving bike facilities and transit. This obviously won’t work for everyone, so…
2. Remind people that disabled parking spots are available for free via SDOT[1]. These are not exclusive-use signs, but they will make it easier to keep spots open for disabled people in the neighborhood. They also won’t help the abled people who still need to drive, so…
3. Write to the council requesting that Wallingford have a parking benefit district, with some of the revenue from our RPZ tags going back to the neighborhood for improvements (parks, transit, biking, parking structures, etc.), and the goal being a parking utilization rate of ~85%.
[1] https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/parking-program/disabled-parking
I thought we weren’t supposed to shame addicts….
It’s interesting to note the tone of “fortunate enough to have a driveway” for single family homeowners compared to “apartments built without parking”. Those houses were also built without parking; people who moved in there with cars are doing the exact same thing the people moving into those apartments are doing.
I think that there are a few different situations, so I’ll provide mine. There was a truck parked on our street for a while (I had never seen it before). It had a phone number on the side. I called that number and spoke to the business. That business used contractors and they contacted the owner. The owner lives in Burian and just liked to leave the truck in Seattle. She didn’t know about the law. She didn’t know that parking was an issue in Wallingford, and she came and got it within a day. But if she hadn’t, I would have called the city. I wouldn’t have before they started the zone parking, but I live just west of where it ends and our street is totally parked out now because the zone parking has pushed everyone west a bit.
FWIW, I would never do it if I recognized the car.
Thanks for the article! This actually happened to us. We went to visit family for a week and returned to our car missing. Lo and behold, it had been towed. We went to get it out of impound and it had already been there for 2d, so we had to pay several hundreds of dollars for the ticket and impound fees. My general request would be to reserve reporting vehicles unless they look decrepit, abandoned, or otherwise buried in mother nature (leaves/dirt/debris) indicating the car has sat for a couple weeks.