Also No parking Ban enforcement on Eld St, and no plowing of the odd side, although most neighbors moved cars. Now, from #31 to State street is clear of cars of the odd side. PLEASE plow this area before the street fills up again. And please enforce the ban next time.

sounds like a post from someone with a driveway.

I have no qualms at all about leaving my car parked on the odd side of the street for the very simple reason that in my eight years of living in East Rock, I have never seen a city-operated snow plower at work until at least 4 days after a major snowfall. In fact, not only is it a rational decision to leave my car on the "wrong" side of the street, but it would be an embarrassment for the city to go out today and ticket or tow our cars since the snowplows are still days away from clearing streets north of Humphrey.

Please enforce the parking ban throughout East Rock during snow storms. Most of these streets are too narrow to remain improperly cleared of snow. If the bans are enforced, residents will begin to take them seriously and the streets will be safer. But the City has to do its part beyond enforcement and actually plow the streets, too!

Cranky, driveway or no driveway, it is encumbent on all of us as a community to work together with the City to keep our neighborhood safe and our streets clear of snow. It benefits EVERYONE!

@lawrencestreetneighbor: this is all true, but if the streets remain unplowed, then what's the use of all these declarations of "community"? Where are we to put our cars while waiting for plows that are in a race with the thaw to actually show up (which is what happened 4 weeks ago)?

@eastrockcookie, please note in my previous comments that I urged the City to do their part to actually plow when parking bans are posted and enforced. Perhaps, if the City isn't able to get to all the streets in East Rock in one day or night, the bans should be staggered to include only as many streets as they can do in the allotted time. By "community" I am referring to residents and City officials. If we continue the back and forth banter of "I'm not moving my car because the City doesn't plow." to which the City will respond, "We can't plow because residents don't obey the parking bans.", we will NEVER have clear streets. It's incumbent on us ALL to work together to solve the problem.

Please plow and tow. I do my part, and pay the city to do theirs.

According to the city website, there was not actually a ban on odd side parking. People were encouraged to "please" park on the even side of the street. So maybe TH is losing the courage of her convictions?

The parking ban should be enforced and I hope our new mayor plans to do so. Ticketing and towing has the potential to effect real change. I say this as a person who has parked on the street in East Rock for close to 20 years. Every time there is a storm, there are many people who simply break out of a spot without doing any shoveling, and then take a spot from someone who has conscientiously shoveled and parked where the city has recommended parking. There are many cars that are left unshoveled for days, taking up the room of more than one space. If the ban were seriously put into effect, the situation would change for the benefit of everyone.

It would be helpful to hear about the bans earlier in the day, so that people can plan.
It would also make sense that Yale shuttles don't go down narrow streets (Foster, for one) until the plows have completed their work.

I can't disagree med Lawrence Street Neighbor, Res or Natalya, and maybe my comment was phrased a little too callously. Even so, I would find it absolutely hopeless if the city went out and poured a lot of resources into the ticket/towing ban given that the enforcement of this ban is in itself quite costly. You might say that having city employees (cops, parking authority) do the work of ticketing pays for itself given that these fines go into city coffers. But the city has to contract with tow companies to get the cars out the streets and that stuff ain't cheap. Why on earth should tax dollars fund the business of these companies? As Natalya puts it (and LS Neighbor implicitly does so as well), the problem is grounded in the unreliability of city snow plows. Meanwhile, the problem of people taking a spot that someone else spent a lot of energy shoveling out would not and could not be a problem if we could rely on city plows to come and do snow removal.

PUT DIFFERENTLY, the problem is not that people like myself sometimes ignore the ban or that some people (not me) take the spot you dug out for yourself: the problem is above all that the plows take forever to get into East Rock. If ticketing and towing has the potential to effect real change, imagine the change that could be brought about by the knowledge that the streets would in fact be plowed within 24 hours of a storm (and yes, that's entirely reasonable: this is not Chicago). In my experience, that knowledge has not exactly been a given. Sorry for the ranting, I'm just really puzzled about this outpouring of support for policing over plowing. I get the claim that policing and plowing go hand in hand. But let's put some more weight behind the demand for more and faster plowing, please.

Ranting is an entirely understandable reaction because having to park on the street in East Rock during the winter can be a frustrating experience. That being said eastrockcookie, I must say I respectfully disagree. When ticketing and towing is employed during street sweeping season (which seems like a more arbitrary task to me, but, whatever) it works. It works down town, it worked last year after the big blizzard and during the New Haven Road Race. I don't believe people will move their cars voluntarily just because they know the plows are right around the corner. Maybe you have more faith in human nature than do I, but over the years, I've seen many cars left to be plowed around multiple times, which makes plowing inefficient. I do agree certainly that it would take a very organized and focused effort by the city to do this in a manner that would least inconvenience people. LOL! I can always hope. Take care.

The plow just drove down Lawrence and just re-scrapped the center of the street. The City should send a supervisor to check on the job done--and withhold payment until done properly. And ticket the houses where sidewalks have not been shoveled.

The Parking Division has addressed this issue. If this continues to be a problem, you may re-open or report as a new issue in the Parking Violation/Abandoned Auto category. Thank you.