Steve Faguy has an interesting post on Fagstein about the creative measures Montrealer drivers take when they need to park their cars after a big snowstorm. “When faced with a free spot knee-deep in snow, there are three options,” he writes:
1. Find some temporary place to stash the car and dig the spot out with a shovel, hoping nobody swoops in and steals the spot after you’ve cleared it (this also presents the recursive problem of where to put the car when you’re clearing the spot)
2. Declare the spot unparkable, and keep going looking for another one, which most likely doesn’t exist
3. Drive the car as far as it will go into the spot, and then give up, leaving it either parked diagonally, parked far from the curb, or both
Parking your car diagonally seems to be the most popular solution. On some wide streets, I think it should actually be the norm, since diagonal parking has been known to calm traffic and create more parking spaces. While this measure is normally taken as a way to boost business on ailing commercial streets, it could also be used to great effect on broad residential streets that suffer from the problem of speeding cars.
Photos by Steve Faguy
4 comments
Option numéro 3 pour moi mais je l’ai regetté hier matin. J’ai tellement rentré vite dans mon spot en fin de semaine que mon auto a levé sur la neige et les roues avant ne touchaient plus au sol. Résultat: après une heure pour sortir mon auto de mon spot, j’ai du abdiquer et appeller le CAA pour me sortir de là. Première fois en 6 ans de parking hivernal :-(
“Broad” is the keyword here. Unfortunately, many streets are too narrow to have a lane and a half of snow on either side, plus another lane on either side for parking, and have enough space left for two buses to pass each other in either direction.
Moi j’ai l’opportunité de prendre le métro. Eh oui! Alors je laisse ma voiture dans la neige et j’attends qu’on déblaie une des rues autour puisqu’on ne commence jamais par la mienne :)
This must be a Montreal thing, since you never see this type of severe-angled parking in Toronto. You get nose or tail of car poking out a bit, but nothing like that second photo!