There are two days a week– and I can never remember which those are– when I’m not allowed to park in front of my house because of street cleaning. This alleged cleaning happens between 9:30 and 11:30 am. So on those days, no matter what’s happening– you’re seeping in, recovering from surgery, you’ve been robbed and tied to a chair, whatever– you must move your car. If you don’t, you’d better believe you’ll get a ticket. Trust me, I’ve had several.
But there’s just one problem: the city hasn’t cleaned our street in weeks. Months? I don’t think they’ve cleaned the street once this summer. Every time the girls and I get into the car, we have to step around broken glass.
If you don’t want to clean our street, I can live with that. But could you also not send out the parking police? There’s not enough parking as it is. Plus, those people you hire to do parking enforcement are all really mean and put me in a bad mood when I see them in the morning.
Washington DC has been called the parking capitol of the nation… giving out more than 1.5 million tickets last year (we only have 600,000 residents!). People who live here complain about it all the time. There are usually so many signs on each block that you can’t even figure out which one to read.
Is there a Stadium event right now? Should I log onto the computer and check their schedule before parking? I think it’s all a trick meant to confuse us so that we never know where we can park and the city can give us a ticket whenever they want to. What do you think?
LOL on the “is there an RFK event going on right now”. That IS confusing! Signs are ALWAYS confusing. And more than 1. Sheesh! And sorry that you have to move your car even though they don’t actually clean the streets. EVERY week?! Two days?! Oh, why do you stay??
I have just accepted this as part of life since moving here. Being from Texas, I don’t even think I had ever heard of parking tickets until I moved here!
I’m currently doing the math on whether I spend more annually on Starbucks or parking tickets.
I’m voting more on Starbucks still 😉 Seriously, even moving from Philly to Germantown, I was shocked by the more-cramp feeling and crowds. I can’t imagine moving from Texas (where land is “free”) to DC!
Our street gets cleaned twice a month:
http://dpw.dc.gov/DC/DPW/Services+on+Your+Block/Street+and+Alley+Cleaning/Street+Sweeping,+Alley+Cleaning+and+Litter+Can+Collection
so I thought, hummm… when are we do for our next cleaning…so I call, the nice man there told me to call the Dept of Public works that there is a schedule and they’ll know ! 202 645 3900 – they tell me I need to call the Sanitation Dept 202 727 3720 but that they close at 2:30 PM – so, I’ll try again tomorrow…. so 4 times a month we cant park but they only clean twice a month and they know the schedule (there is a schedule!) so why doesn’t the parking dept and the Sanitation dept talk to each other? Oh I know – because they want to make moment!
and that woudl be Money….not Moment. Erg.
Well that makes all kinds of sense! They’re just trying to get us into the habit, right?! So we don’t forget. That’s also why they change the days so often. Just keeping us on our toes.
Seriously though, why does it take a private investigator to figure these things out? Thank you, Cavish Holmes.
I live in St. Louis, but I actually live 30 – 40 minutes away form the city. That is just crazy! I have watched that show Parking Wars and you are totally living it!
I hate going down to the city trying to park but I know it’s a cake walk compared to your parking. So not cool.
Julie 🙂
I’ve never seen Parking Wars! Need to check that out, for sure. I’ve had words with so many parking police that I would think they know my name… but since *everyone* here has problems with them, I’m probably just another sucker going broke paying tickets.