Driveway Parking

We used to live in the Cole Valley (well, technically it was Upper Haight but nobody likes to admit they live in Upper Haight) and during the weekend’s almost every drive way had a car parked in it, especially at night when everyone went out and about in the neighborhood. One night, around midnight, one of our crazy neighbors came home only to find a car parked in her driveway, blocking her from parking her own car in her very own garage. So she started screaming at the top of her lungs about how she can't get into her garage and how she's going to kill whomever parked the car in her driveway and how they spend all this money to have a garage and how they’re tired and not healthy and how they were going to get the car towed unless somebody came down. After about five minutes of screaming, somebody sheepishly went down to move their car. Crisis averted.

What does this have to do with anything other than being one of our favorite stories? Well, there's been an influx of driveway parking, especially in the Richmond, and Supervisor Jake McG wants a crack down. The main reason given is safety concerns, mainly that it's hard for the elderly and disabled to get passed, but one could say that it's worth a crackdown just because it's a friggin pain in the ass to get past those cars. It's such a bugaboo for Jake that he's been reporting scofflaws for the past ten years. Apparently, two addresses-- 605-607 Fifth Ave and 609-611 Fifth Ave-- are such repeat offenders that McGoldrick has put them on double secret probation.

The obvious answer, of course, is more enforcement. Just like it being the obvious answer to double parking and unpaid meter fees. Which makes us wonder where we're going to get all the money for all this enforcing and how we are going to enforce this while also also enforcing serious crimes but that's not our job to wonder about. We're also guessing that like the other car-related issues we have mentioned, the moment we start enforcing, we'll be overwhelmed by people whining about getting tickets and how dare they ding us for something we're not supposed to be doing?

Until something is done, if you want to tattle on someone who parks in a driveway, the number to the DPT is (415) 553-1200