Some residents of East Clayton are choked about their vehicles being peppered with parking tickets lately, and rightfully so. They have been ticketed, at $35 a pop, for parking in front of their own homes after the city replaced what used to be their parking spaces with a poorly used bike lane, moat-wide sidewalk and grassy boulevard of comparable size.
One homeowner has been ticketed no fewer than eight times since the city made these "improvements."
When he moved in, back in May of 2013, he and his fellow residents had a gravel strip out front on which they could park.
But now it's gone. People today are already paying astronomical prices for "houses" with closets that are passed off as bedrooms and garages that are maybe large enough to fit a moped.
Where are people to park their cars? To add insult to injury, residents are reporting instances where they are receiving tickets because their tire or tires just barely touched the white painted line that marks the boundary of the bike line.
This appears to be predatory. Any right-thinking person would agree that the city should act with integrity and shoulder its responsibility to these homeowners to provide some reasonable parking arrangement for them.
It needs to fix this. Where are they to park their vehicles, in mid-air?
Any fair city would not create a problem for residents and then penalize them for trying to cope with that same problem.
There's space available for parking, and the present odd configuration could reasonably be reworked to everyone's benefit.
The Now