@dcaussie tweets us Sunday afternoon:
“And this is why you don’t illegally park at CT Ave & Dupont Circle, you jackass. #chaos”
parking
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UPDATE from Council Member Evans:
“I want to apologize for parking in a fire hydrant zone on Thursday evening. To be honest, I didn’t realize there was a fire hydrant. That is, of course, no excuse, and I now fully recognize that was not a legal parking spot.”
“Dear PoPville,
My husband and I were having dinner with friends at West End Bistro when we noticed a back car doing a pretty sloppy job of parallel parking, bumping the other two cars enough to draw our attention. To make it even more entertaining, the driver was attempting to park right in front of a fire hydrant. Then we noticed the license plate said DC Council! We assumed the driver/apparent councilperson hadn’t seen the hydrant, and would realize their error as soon as they opened the car door. Nope.
Jack Evans stepped out in a tux, looked straight at the fire hydrant, put a cigar in his mouth, and walked toward the entrance of the Ritz. It was like some sort of caricature of a political fat cat. We left maybe 45 minutes later and he hadn’t returned, so it wasn’t as if he ran a quick errand.
In front of a hydrant?! Really??”
Ed. Note: We’ve previously learned that Council Members are not obligated to follow parking regulations however, I’m not sure if that applies to fire hydrants given the safety risk.
Photo by PoPville flickr user philliefan99
“Dear PoPville,
Wonder if anyone in PoPville have experience with pressing the city for reimbursement for expenses incurred with private companies. Basically, my car was ticketed and towed at the behest of a contractor who was renovating a house across the street. I was headed out of town for a week and I parked outside the no parking signs he had erected for more than a year.
I documented that my car was legally parked and the ticket was dismissed.
I sought reimbursement for the $220 in towing and storage fees since the ticket that provided the basis for the towing was dismissed. Now DC says that they have no responsibility because the contractor called the towing firm. However, the ticket clearly is checked “towing requested.”
Even tough it was towed by a private entity, isn’t DC responsible for authorizing the tow?
And since the original ticket was dismissed is DC not responsible for the towing and storage fees?”
No Parking Signs outside of Cardozo High School:
“I’m posting this to make others aware of the new no parking signs on Clifton St outside of Cardozo HS, and also ask if/where I can file a complaint about them.
I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 3 years (13th and Clifton), and have never had trouble finding parking. I parked, as usual, in the 1200 block of Clifton outside of Cardozo last week on a Sunday. When I went to use my car 3 days later, I had been ticketed 3 separate times for parking in a restricted zone. At some point between when I parked and when I got the first ticket, the city had posted no parking signs in front of Cardozo, decreasing parking on the street by at least 40%. The entire block is now restricted. To make matters worse, the no parking signs are tiny, do not specify restricted hours, and could be very easily missed by anyone (including those of us who have been residents for a while, apparently). The entire block was parked up by residents, and all of us had multiple tickets.
Anyone know who I can contact to complain about this? Surely we should have been given some notice of the parking changes, and surely the signs could limit parking within school hours, while allowing residents to park over the weekend or in the evenings.”
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“Dear PoPville,
After moving to a new house we applied for a 2014 visitor parking permit in August of this year. It is now the end of October and we still have not received it. In early October we called DDOT who said they had “lost” our online application and would get it approved and in the mail the next day. Two weeks later the online system listed our application as approved but we still had not received it in the mail. After numerous calls and tweets to DDOT I was finally able to get someone to look into it. After following up again, I heard from a DDOT “communications specialist” via email that the problem appears to be more systematic and “it’s not only yours, unfortunately” that has not been mailed out. Apparently there are “outside bodies who mail these out”. They claim that “they’re looking into next steps” and unhelpfully suggested we just go get a temporary one from our ward police station (which is not at all near our house) that would only last 15 days. They provided no timeline as to when we might receive our VPP. I’ve repeatedly asked to speak with the person at DDOT who is handling this matter but so far no one has returned my calls. I’m concerned that this seems to be a much broader problem. Has anyone else applied for a 2014 visitor parking permit that never arrived?”
“Dear PoPville,
Why does the Dorchester house on 16th is keeping the “construction no parking” signs up on Kalorama even though construction’s over? It’s really inconvenient. There are 3 of these (photo above) spaced out to block off ~10 spots.”
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“Dear PoPville,
Is this person serious?
We got two moving pods delivered. We weren’t there when they were delivered but the driver placed them down with the openings facing each other and enough room between them to easily load large items. And then this jackanape comes along and just parks RIGHT in between them so the doors can’t even open. Do the signs technically say no parking from 7am to 5pm? Yes they do. But where’s the common courtesy?? We got one friend to help move heavy items but now we cant and we have no idea how we’re going to get those items in. Virginia plates for what it’s worth.”
Ed. Note: jackanape is my new favorite word.
Is it possible that the car was there and the moving company placed the pods around it? Still not cool but not quite as jackanapish if that happened. Of course, this is a good reminder to please not park between moving pods.
From DDOT:
“The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) announced today that the Visitor Parking Passes (VPP) that will expire September 30, 2014, will continue to remain valid until December 31, 2014. District residents will not be ticketed for proper use of their 2014 VPP. The VPP program is designed to allow guests of District residents to park for more than two hours on Residential Permit Parking (RPP) zoned blocks. (more…)
@DMarx tweets us (I think from Columbia Heights):
“@PoPville Another person having fun with confusing parking signs. Is this art? graffiti? protest?”
I’m pretty sure this a “legit” warning (not art or protest) from a resident who just got pushed over the edge because people kept parking in the reserved handicap space.