20 feet from reality
Several readers have pointed me to this story, about Portland City Hall's recent announcement that parking won't be allowed within 20 feet from the corner at intersections in "high-crash corridors."
I think the 20-foot rule is a good one. As a person who drives what was once a normal sedan, I can't see over or around the behemoth SUVs and vans that are so popular these days. If they're parked too close to the intersection, it does create a real hazard. Especially for pedestrians.
But:
1. It's already illegal under state law to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk, marked or unmarked, at any intersection. Methinks Commissioner Jo Ann With the Bullhorn is doing a litle grandstanding here, trying to save her City Council job. She'll need more than yellow paint.
2. Who will enforce the rules? Certainly not the few police we have left. They won't even show up when someone threatens to shoot you. They couldn't care less about traffic enforcement. Maybe the park rangers or the kids who put out the meaningless "local access only" barrels are supposed to do it.
3. How will they give out tickets to cars with no license plates? Hundreds and hundreds of vehicles with no license plates continue to whizz around town with no consequences. Sometimes bullets fly out of them. Something tells me those guys aren't too observant of the parking rules.
I guess we should chalk one up for safety, but it's a small chalkmark indeed.
Man, if you think policing is in the business of preventing crime, I gotta wonder.
ReplyDeleteAt best they are crime accountants or ...maybe investigate once in a while...if it's easy and doesn't step on toes of the powers that be.
I'd be down with some spike strips for 10+mph over in neighborhoods that neighbors can organize to shoot out or the colorado style triple speed dips that can really slam the neck of the average bro-dozer driver on the third 'whump' in a way they'll remember if they speed really excessively, but they're snow-plow compatible and the wide-stance SUVs and trucks can't just straddle them like the little speed mounds & the first two bumps give some warning...you'll know if you're driving too fast by the time the 3rd bump (dip) hits. It also hits the speeding SUV drivers as hard or harder than just sensible car drivers.
Then, police could observe and investigate reckless driving & abuse of the I5 carpool lane and we could maybe prevent some of the worst of it.
Not having to deal with plates & the $80 title fee ($4 in AZ for a water mark title document as it should be) has been nice for the last year has been nice to clear off some excess cars.
Thankfully, due to the timing I could let it lapse a year (they won't give you credit for unused registration in OR like they do in AZ and single plate/no speeding cameras in AZ & plates don't follow the owner here like AZ and costs a fortune/defacto flat tax to register) & you have to wait a full year past expiration to not end up paying extra for back-months of tags...what a Kalifornicated liberal jerk off state.
AZ gives you refunds for months or days of tags not used to the penny in case your car gets stolen, wrecked or sold & not replaced/you don't re-use the plate for another car.
AZ also allows purchase of insurance and requires the company cover the insured with no license or suspended license (not because they care, their tax/voter base just won't tolerate picking up the tab for uninsured motorists).
They allow infinitely many $1 3-day trip permits but you have to give them your info. Kinda nice if you have to move a car/they make it painless.
They take your $12 up front to emissions test your car but if you fail you don't have to pay again.
Why can't we figure some of this ish out?
I smell grand-standing & make-work curb painting art(s) tax & arts & crafts projects here.
Since they don' really seem to enforce the parking regulations out side of downtown, what point does it make. Here in Sellwood where I live parking has become a nightmare since they started building 4 story apartment with no onsite parking. Drive of behemoth SUV's routinely block crossings at intersections. If you happen to see one and point out the fact hat they can't park there you generally get one of two responses: "Oh, I'm only going to be a minute" or they just flat out ignore you.
ReplyDeleteYou haven't had a developer/coercive enforcement for gentrification post in a minute, & I think we all kinda tacitly know this, buut:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/11/analysis-finds-property-owners-in-portlands-most-diverse-gentrifying-areas-hardest-hit-by-code-violation-fines.html
Maybe we wouldn't distrust/resent the city bureaucrats and building codes if they actually offered assistance or did something to improve the health & safety for the little guy/average poorer people instead of harassing us/trying to push us out and give away or condemn our places to the developer weasels?
& maybe parking wouldn't be so fucked/right up to the street corner (worse with new SUVs on every overcrowded too-narrow aerterial street (just look at N. Interstate & North Argyle with the latest souless bunker!) if there actually were any parking with all the bunkers with insufficient parking/fantasy that people won't need cars to get places point-point in the time alotted running on the capitalist treadmill or will share them with exorbitant middle-man corporate markups like Uber & Lift feeding the corporation/capitalizing/monetizing the rot of collapsing infrastructure, public transit, affordable low-rise housing with plenty of parking, detached garages & full basements/sufficient storage/public easements and green spaces and no online 'customer is always right' review system with traditional taxi companies or community taxi companies?
ReplyDeleteThe swirls are getting tighter & faster...