Thursday, February 18, 2010

Mayor Pleads for Calm

... as furniture piles up in parking places, feuds erupt.
Be bold SRB! Send out the bulk trash trucks!
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21 comments:

ppatin said...

I have to agree with SRB here, it's time for the lawn chairs to go away. I was annoyed by how many people in Fells Point yesterday thought it was still ok to reserve spots for themselves more than a week after the storm.

Fri Feb 19, 06:32:00 AM EST
Cham said...

2 days ago the city sent out a plowing crew to my neighborhood. The streets are completely clear. Yet, the lawn furniture persists. I'm already a proud owner of a new shovel. Today I'm getting me some really nice lawn chairs. I've got my eye on 4 of them that are strewn about a street a few blocks away.

Fri Feb 19, 07:35:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

When I get home from work, I should be able to park my car in the spot I dug out. Everyone pitched in and dug each other out and everyone on my street has chairs in their spots. No one seems to mind except for county people and people that don't live on our block that want to park in a spot someone else dug out. The city has not cleared the streets and their is no additional parking. Should I park at SRB's house and take a shuttle to my place? Is anyone willing to give up their spot so I can park near my house?

Fri Feb 19, 09:03:00 AM EST
ppatin said...

Anon:

For the first few days I would've agreed with you. I busted my ass shoveling my parking spot, shoveling my sidewalk, hell I even shoveled out part of my roommate's mother's street! At a certain point though people lose the right to reserve their parking spots.

Fri Feb 19, 09:14:00 AM EST
Cham said...

I deserve. me me me me me me

Fri Feb 19, 09:42:00 AM EST
Maurice Bradbury said...

.. if this city had an actual subway system instead of a metro here and a light rail there it wouldn't even be an issue.

But it is what it is, and the point that you lose the right to your spot = when you remove your car from it. Every car on the road has left a dug-out space somewhere, right?

I see restless natives are beginning to form chair destruction bar crawls:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=309975851840&ref=mf

Fri Feb 19, 12:18:00 PM EST
ppatin said...

".. if this city had an actual subway system instead of a metro here and a light rail there it wouldn't even be an issue."

Dear god, don't get me started. My parents are living in Paris right now, and whenever I visit them I want to scream with envy. The ability to go anywhere in the city without ever touching a car is amazing. Hell, Baltimore doesn't even need a real subway. Above-ground light rail/trams would work pretty well in most areas.

Fri Feb 19, 12:36:00 PM EST
Cham said...

We had a perfectly efficient system. Few people owned cars. There were light-rail tracks on every major artery. Things worked great, the cost was low and a special tax funded the park system. Then we tore everything up so that we could accommodate the buses and the beltway and allow people to get to their own special place in suburbia in just a few minutes with their Edsels. What a mess we made.

Fri Feb 19, 12:59:00 PM EST
ppatin said...

Bring back street cars! I'm serious, read up on the tram systems in Amsterdam or Zurich to see how awesome they can be, & they cost much less than underground heavy rail.

Fri Feb 19, 01:44:00 PM EST
ppatin said...

One relatively easy thing they could do to improve transit would be to create a second light rail line that splits from the current one at Penn Station, goes up Charles Street to Towson then meets up with the current line at Timonium again. That would be so much more useful than the current light rail to nowhere. Watch out, you have me in full Baltimore Public Transit Evangelist mode.

Fri Feb 19, 01:46:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

Parking is constant annoyance, and the snow gave everyone an excuse to do something selfish about it. Now we're paying the price for lax enforcement.

The city needs to send out bulk trash trucks and end this nonsense.

Fri Feb 19, 02:02:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

Towson residents fought to keep the light rail from having a stop in Towson. Just as Carroll County residents are fighting to keep the Metro from expanding north.

Fri Feb 19, 02:04:00 PM EST
ppatin said...

Anon:

Are you sure the bit about Towson isn't a myth? There's lots of stories about neighborhoods fighting to keep out the light rail, but from what I understand the real driver behind its current route was cost. It had to be built on the cheap since there were no federal funds, and William Donald Schaeffer demanded that it be done in time for the opening of Camden Yards. That forced them to use the existing old right of way along the Jones Falls. This sounds like the untrue story about how the residents of Georgetown kept the DC Metro out of their area.

I've also never heard of any serious plans to extend the subway past Owings Mills. Getting money for heavy rail is pretty difficult in general, and all of Baltimore's efforts are going into securing funding for the red line.

Fri Feb 19, 02:09:00 PM EST
Cham said...

Yesterday I had an opportunity to enjoy suburban Anne Arundel County. The wind was blowing and I must admit it was a bit nippy out. I took a long hard look at those 6 bedroom houses. I wonder what those heating bills are like this time of year. I wouldn't know because with my passive solar system in my Baltimore row home I haven't turned my heat in the last decade. With the ruthlessness of that creepy BGE CEO, I doubt utility rates will be decreasing any time soon. Also, I wondered where the home occupants worked. I didn't see a business park nearby. With corporations now be afforded all the protections of citizenship when it suits them and all the protections of corporate status when it is convenient, I think the gouging will increase and continue. Unless we figure out a way to individually and sustainably heat our homes and fuel our personal transports, the dearth of local tram systems will solve itself. Gas in Germany is $11/gallon. Baltimore, Philadelphia and DC will just revert to their former glory. New York and Boston will continue being New York and Boston. Westminister, Columbia, Ellicott City and and Odenton will have challenges.

Fri Feb 19, 02:11:00 PM EST
ppatin said...

While they're at it they should extend the current light rail out to Columbia.

Fri Feb 19, 02:15:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

The residents of the counties around Baltimore don't want the rail system extended to them for one simple reason.

It allows the animals access to more people and property to victimize. It's a crime thing.

Sat Feb 20, 06:50:00 AM EST
Cham said...

If the counties don't want it then we shouldn't spend the money to have the counties connected to a rail system. Why waste money? The people in the counties can just sit out there disconnected from the rest of the region. If $10/gallon gas doesn't bother them then that is fine with me.

Sat Feb 20, 07:24:00 AM EST
ppatin said...

"It allows the animals access to more people and property to victimize. It's a crime thing."

That BS has been disproven time and time again. Public transportation doesn't bring more crime with it. I know that in DC being close to the Metro is great for property values.

Sat Feb 20, 10:21:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

This just in:

B of A guard shot downtown.

Sat Feb 20, 10:39:00 AM EST
Bruce Garrett said...

I bought a wheelbarrow the other day and finished off a couple of big snow piles that were taking up spaces on my end of the street. My neighbors here have been doing the same ever since the last of the big snowfalls. Every day since I've seen someone out there working it just a little bit more and a little bit more. Our (my neighbor's and my) street is so clean now, and least on our end that were all pretty much not putting out space savers anymore.

At the other end of the street, where there is a tad less community spirit, the snowpiles still sit in lotsa places where cars could otherwise park, and the furniture and other odds and ends still reign. Kinda sums up the times we live in doesn't it.

Oh...and one other thing. Our street is kinda out of the way. I don't think the rest of the neighborhood knows how good it looks compared to the surrounding blocks. Otherwise, I am certain, our street would instantly become everyone else's overflow parking and the chairs would come right back out again.

People who complain about the street furniture could help the situation by digging their streets out some more. This has not been your usual central Maryland winter.

Mon Feb 22, 10:20:00 AM EST
Tom H. said...

"Every car on the road has left a dug-out space somewhere, right?"

- Actually, no. A large number of people don't clear shit. They often clear just enough window to see just a little bit and then force their way out of the space and just forge on. They also often weather the storm elsewhere and then venture back downtown after much hard work has already been done. If everyone did indeed actually clear their vehicle and the space and the walk around it, your claim would be just. In reality, there's a lot of lazy half-asses out there who don't do anything close to "civic duty" and would scoff at the notion of any kind of personal responsibility for doing anything useful, considerate or neighborly. Their notion of any kind of "social contract" is "whatever, I do what I want, when I want a screw everyone else". For the record, a LOT of these losers seem to be entitled, out-of-state renters with no desire to integrate into any semblance of a "community". That being said, the conditions that lead to spot saving have been cleared and gone by the end of last week. Time to move on!

Mon Feb 22, 10:49:00 AM EST

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