Originally uploaded by thetejon
I took this photo the other day while I was up on the roof with the heater repair guys. I couldn’t hear the bulk of the conversation, but I believe the woman in the brown coat, one of my neighbors, was complaining first to a parking enforcement officer, then to a police officer, and then to this woman, a parking enforcement supervisor, about tickets being written. During the winter, they suspend street cleaning. They don’t change the signs, they just assume you know that, from some arbitrary date in November to some equally arbitrary date in March, you are free to ignore the no parking signs for street cleaning. Try to find out what those dates are. I dare you. However, it seems you can only ignore some of the signs. Usually, the south side of the street is two hour parking for all out-of-zone cars. On street cleaning days, it changes to DC residential parking permit holders only. So the parking enforcement official ticketed all the Maryland and Virginia drivers on the south side. I’m guessing that my neighbor was arguing that these signs don’t apply when street cleaning is suspended. I don’t think she’s going to win this argument, but she did leave notes on all the ticketed cars. I don’t know what they said. I would have told them to contest the tickets by mail, which won’t do any good, but might make them feel better. Still, it is pretty absurd that it takes four signs to explain the parking. Doesn’t this suggest to someone that the parking restrictions might be overly complicated?