Please could we have parking enforcement, they got it in Lakeview

From: NorthWest Carrollton
To: orleans@timespicayune.com
Subject: Parking Enforcement
Date: Jul 30, 2009 12:44 PM
This email is in response to Lynne Jensen's article published in the Times Picayune on July 2, 2009

We thought we'd offer are a few reasons why parking enforcement is a good thing at this stage of our recovery:

Parking legally, especially facing in the right direction, is safer. There are some streets in our neighborhood where it is difficult to tell if the street is a one or two way because so many cars are parked against traffic. Since the streets that parallel Carrollton are 2 way and the streets perpendicular to Carrollton tend to be one way, getting the right "signals" from how the cars parked can be important. Also have you ever been driving down a narrow 2 way street only to have a car parked in the wrong direction pull out at you? Trust me it happens. It's scary and very dangerous.

Parking legally, especially not on the green space between the sidewalk and the street, safeguards the green space and provides places where trees can be planted. Trees clean the air, sequester carbon (fighting global warming), help reduce energy bills, raise property values and have also been shown to reduce crime. Allowing folks to park illegally on the green space especially all over their front lawns usually results in folks thinking that the next best thing is to pave their front yards. This results in either compaction of the soil or a reduction of the soils capacity to absorb rainfall and contributes to neighborhood street flooding.

Parking legally is in keeping with the Broken Windows Theory. This means that when it looks like a neighborhood cares about trash, high grass, and things like FOLLOWING the (parking) RULES, then criminals find somewhere else to work.

Parking legally, especially not on the sidewalks, protects the sidewalk infrastructure from damage and provides a safe place for pedestrian traffic. Have you ever had to venture into the street because a car was across the sidewalk. Imagine doing this when you use a walker or are pushing a stroller. Sidewalks are for people not vehicles. Clear sidewalks encourage the walkable neighborhoods we said we wanted in all those planning sessions and encourages people to use the sidewalks instead of their vehicles. For that matter so do trees.

These are just a few of the reasons why parking enforcement is a better idea than one might initially think. Given the alternate of supporting the city's recovery by paying a parking ticket or supporting the city's recovery by following the rules, we're hoping folks will choose to follow the rules.

Sincerely,
Representatives of NorthWest Carrollton
nwcarrollton.blogspot.com

Take a look at what illegal parking can do for a neighborhood.... it isn't good.