nothin City Won’t Tow Odd-Side Cars | New Haven Independent

City Won’t Tow Odd-Side Cars

Thomas MacMIllan Photo

New traffic chief Doug Hausladen put out a call for neighbors to work together to keep the odd-numbered side of streets clear for plowing. But, he said, tow trucks won’t come for the odd cars out.

Hausladen made those remarks Wednesday afternoon, hours before a parking ban was due to begin.

Starting at 6 p.m., the city will ban all cars from parking downtown, posted snow routes, and the odd side of all city streets, including neighborhood streets, until 6 a.m. Thursday. People can park overnight at the Temple and Crown street parking garages for $3 between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. Parking will be free at the Granite Square parking garage.

Hausladen, on his third day on the job as the city’s transportation director, said he’ll have tow trucks ready to clear out downtown, but not residential streets.

In recent years that subject has provoked much debate in town, especially in neighborhoods where narrow side streets became unplowable in repeated storms because of cars that never cleared the way in the first place. City officials have veered back and forth on the necessity of towing; as recently as Tuesday afternoon, emergency operations chief Rick Fontana said at a planning session at the city’s Emergency Operations Center that at some point crews need to do some neighborhood towing to get the message out.

Other officials questioned whether the city has the capacity to do that, or whether it will cost too much to make school parking lots available for neighbors to use. School parking lots have been open to neighbors for previous storms, but not for this one.

Operationally, we are going to ticket and tow downtown. We are going to ticket and work on towing the snow routes,” Hausladen told the Independent Wednesday afternoon. But he called towing on the residential streets a bridge too far. It’s a very large operational hurdle to get to the residential areas.”

The city just doesn’t have the resources to tow all odd-side cars, Hausladen said. The fact of the matter is, that would be an army of tow trucks.”

Asked about smaller-scale enforcement — picking a street or two to clear, to send a message that the city is serious about the odd-side ban — Hausladen said he’s looking into that possibility. Something we could do is randomized enforcement.” He said he’ll be talking to the mayor about that option.

What we’re capable of right now is ticketing and towing,” Hausladen said.

For now, Hausladen called on people to open up their driveways for neighbors’ cars. This is a community effort. Talk to your neighbors,” Hausladen said. Every car owner should have in their mind where their emergency snow ban parking location is.”

Lisa Siedlarz File Photo

Neighbors shovel out after Winter Storm Nemo.

The city’s policy on residential towing during snowstorms has been the source of confusion and complaints for years, with many people calling for simplicity, consistency, and enforcement.

In 2011, repeated snow storms left city crews unable to clear some narrow side streets in neighborhoods like East Rock, producing an uproar from neighbors.

In the wake of those storms, the DeStefano administration concluded, along with some of the vocal neighbors, that the city needs to declare a ban on parking on one side of those streets—before the snow starts. And then the city needs to tow cars aggressively, and promptly. Otherwise it will never be able to dig out.

We learned the public will appreciate [aggressive towing] as long as we’re [clear] and follow through,” Mayor John DeStefano said at the time. We’re going to be more aggressive about towing. People are pretty accepting and really cooperating.”

Read about the events and the subsequent debate at the time here and here.

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