It Would Be Nice If There Were Some Continuity and Coherence Coming From The Parking Bureau And HPD

This is what I would call
AMBIGUOUS

This morning, I noticed that 3 cars parked on the north side of Prospect Street were issued $25 No Parking Zone tickets overnight by HPD.  Curious as to why the tickets were not for a $15 WRONG SIDE PARKING violation, I finally found a pair of signs on a pole that explains what is going on.  It makes not one bit of sense.

On Prospect Street, December through March, the Overnight Alternate Side Rule applies to both sides of the street.  Park on the "wrong side" and you will be issued a $15 WRONG SIDE PARKING ticket.  This is the same situation on all streets with the Overnight rule, whether there are signs or not.  But park on the north side of Prospect on a Monday night (or the south side on Tuesday night) from April through November and you will be issued a $25 ticket. But both those rules (Alternate Side and No Parking) are designed to prevent the same exact thing -- keeping cars from being parked in the way of the DPW street sweeper.  Why on earth is one ticket $10 more for the same violation of parking on the wrong side and in the way of the sweeper?  The two tickets target the same violation and purpose, but they are worded differently and with a different dollar amount.

An example of a No Parking Zone
 is a yellow curb, not a residential
street where people park all the time

Washington Street has the same type of posted signs as Prospect -- ambiguous and inconsistent!  As far as I can tell, these are the only two streets in the entire city with this configuration, with one penalty for 4 months, and another penalty for the rest of the year for ten dollars more, both trying to accomplish the same goal.  Is City Hall just not paying attention, or are they deliberately trying to gouge residents and visitors until someone calls them on their shoddy, unfair, confusing and unhelpful application of the parking rules?

I wonder what, if anything, Ed Moore would have to say about this.  Ha!  Asking the Parking Bureau about this likely wouldn't get you anywhere, either.  If you got an answer, it might be "DPW puts the signs up, not us."