hi folks... i am going to be riding all around the city taking pictures of parking chairs... if you have recommendations of good streets/areas/neighborhoods/or a specific parking chair that is particularly great for some reason please post here, or say hi if you see me out and about.
here are the ones from lawrenceville: http://ography.org/parkingchairs/
I've seen some really tattered, missing-legs, un-sit-in-able parking chairs in Manchester, on Manhattan St. Genius, really...they're not even worth stealing, and look mildly infectious, so your parking chair remains unmolested.
Also, though not technically a chair, there's a set of what look like taped-together kitty litter jugs that are often out along Wharton, somewhere between 20th and 18th St.
southside is full of them. especially between the river and carson st.
ohh manchester... no one had pointed me in that direction yet... s.side on the river side is definitely on the list... thanks!
great idea mark.
Steve Patchan (i think) had a great idea that if we ever get tot he point where we want to try for on-street bike parking corrals, that the bike racks should look like lawn chairs
south 15th Street as it meets the pedestrian bridge over the railroad usually has 2 to 3 chairs or other object saving enough curb space for 2 cars.
i like when some people try to make it official by using an orange traffic cone
any updates from Steve or others regarding the on-street bike parking at OTB?
Just in the City? Or do you want close in suburban locations as well?
HAHA we should totally make parking chair bike parking.
Also I think that someone, for parking day, should make kind of a mock parking chair hang out in a parking space.
I think combining parking chairs and bike parking is pretty easy, don't you?
Or did you mean something else...
"any updates from Steve or others regarding the on-street bike parking at OTB? "
I think the issue is the parking lane is not always a parking lane so no permanent fixtures can be used in the road.
If you took two of the three rivers bike racks and put them parellell and about 3 ft apart, they could be the sides of a "chair." You could put a back on it and have it represent a chair.
If bikes could lock to the back in various fashions it might not be too much of a space-waster.
The parking chairs should be out in full force once everybody shovels out their parking space after this snow.
St. Marie St. between Collins and Sheridan (East Liberty)...I think it's a couple spots behind the Lincoln Navigator limo (that apparently got its windows busted within the past few days).
Herron Ave. in Polish Hill, it's on the right side of the street after you turn onto Herron from Bigelow. I believe someone had stuck a orange-colored barrel or bucket on it the other day, which was new. Or the barrel was on the other one...oh well. Both were plastic chairs.
lots of parking chairs in the run gaurding car bunkers right now.
Yep. They are sprouting up in Morningside.
lol @ that PG parking chair thing... i would almost guarantee that was a direct result of internet wide parking chair soliciting by me... oh well... having a bike is really great for this kind of thing
i was going to recommend checking out the wikipedia article about it and recommend linking your photos to it, but looks like you beat me to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Parking_Chair
I just dug my neighbor out and explained to him the concept of parking chairs. Which is funny because neither of us are from here.
There's a really fantastic toilet chair (like this one: http://libertyhealthcare.aussiedesigns.com.au/portal/pic/Over%20Toilet%20Chair1255038828.jpg) usually on the corner of 39th and Mineral Way. It pretty much makes my morning commute.
not a chair...but pretty much sums it up
There was a nice exchange on the Freecycle list on Saturday...
OFFER: Lots of snow, Carrick
A few minutes later
RECEIVED: Lots of snow
Saw several parking chairs in the West End on my way out this morning. Caught a 26E, which uses Steuben Street. A couple right along Steuben, between Chartiers Ave and the WEnd Circle, and others in side streets near there.
erok,
i didn't update that wiki page... the internet is amazing...
thanks for all the tips everyone... at this point there are 3 on every block but if you see a particularly good one please give me a shout! (checking out the toilet tonight!)
how we drive blog also posted about it. gave you a little plug
http://www.howwedrive.com/2010/02/08/does-your-town-do-winter-parking-dibs/
I saw a sweet chair last night on negley near the intersection with friendship.
slightly off topic, but didn't the first edition (I bought it at hot house in lawrenceville) of "three rivers on two wheels" have a picture of Lou sitting in a snow covered parking chair???
I heard some guy (2nd hand) say he was just going to park his van down the street. Some people had cleared out a spot and put some chairs in but those would be no problem to move.
I saw a whole bunch along California/Lincoln in Bellevue this morning, esp. near the curve by Mojobistro. One of them looked like a heavy wooden dining room chair, not cheap furniture but a really nice chair.
I heard some guy (2nd hand) say he was just going to park his van down the street. Some people had cleared out a spot and put some chairs in but those would be no problem to move.
Like, he was going to move their chairs and put his car there? Wow, he's brave.
^ Van guy going to move chairs? The very fabric of society would unravel. If he moved my chair, *shrug*, hey I don't own the street. Now, the two piles of 100 cubic feet of snow I moved by hand, on the other hand, would promptly go back to where I moved it from. If a van happened to be there, oh well.
I find the hostility regarding parking in this city quite fascinating. the snow has made an exponential contribution.
I think it cuts both ways. If you're in a residential neighbor, would it not cross your mind that maybe that cleared out spot in front a house was done by the resident of the house? And that, based on that observation, you should perhaps not take that parking spot?
I think parking chairs are a novel and relatively neighborly solution to the issue.
And I'm with Ka_Jun...
We shoveled out our family car (singular) and my elderly neighbor's car. Since Saturday, I'd guess we spent a collective 15 hours on shoveling out vehicles. It mostly took so long because there isn't anywhere to put the snow. There was a car in front of us, and behind. Every shovel full had to be thrown or (in the case of ice chunks) carried across the street to a giant mound in the parking lane on the other side of the street.
Before this week I would never even think of putting a chair in a parking space, but with all that work just to clear snow, I parked a chair in the street and don't feel bad about it. Every single other person on our street also had lawn furniture out as well.
In Minnesota before a big storm they have snow emergencies, and people who park on one side of the street need to move their car. Plow comes, and they can move their car back. If you don't move it, it gets towed. There really isn't an issue with "thats MY spot" when you don't have to spend a whole day shoveling the street.
I'll be curious to see if the city initiates a similar program ahead of big storms. I think it would be difficult to implement in some neighborhoods, though.
^^^+1
I rarely park on the street, but since my apt. building managers refused to clear the driveway...that's where my car is for now. After 2 days of digging to get the car out of the garage, I felt sheepish putting the chairs on the street with the car at first, but I wasn't the only one on my street, so I didn't feel as bad.
I love the idea of a one-side of a street rule. Or better yet, non-residential streets with on-street parking should just close street parking altogether until plowed.
but, can you IMAGINE implementing a one-side of the street rule at the same time city-wide? how the hell would they enforce that? there's a reason they stagger the dates of street sweeping.
The rules span over 3 days, so not everyone in the whole city moves their cars all at once. First day, no parking on emergency routes, all other streets are fair game. Second day, park on either side of snow emergency routes, or on odd side of non-emergency routes. Third day, park on only even side of non-emergency routes, or anywhere on the emergency routes.
There are specific times for when you need to move your car each day, but if after 10am on day 1, they fully plow the emergency route to the curb, you can move your car there.
You can read about it here: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/snow/parking-info.asp
They announce "snow emergency is in effect" on the radio, tv, newspaper. You can't really miss it unless you live in a cave.
the best parking space 'chair' I saw so far...
I saw not one, but two parking LADDERS on Wightman this morning, between Beacon and Forbes. We're talking 8 foot step ladders. I guess when the snowbanks are taller than your chair, you break out a ladder to save your spot?
Being anti-parking chair that I am, I can still be angered by the fact one of my neighbors has been using the spot I dug out for 3 days straight, coming and going. It is one thing if you need it for an evening, but please...
@dmtroyer
If you don't put your chair in the space, why would your neighbor NOT take that spot? It's open.
One hilarious blog-suggestion I've read is that one might go about and claim every park spot he can, just to see how long they go unclaimed.
I think parking chairs are a novel and relatively neighborly solution to the issue.
Neighborly is shoveling someone else's car out. Shoveling out your own is self-serving -- nothing wrong with that. Insisting that you own some bit of public property is selfISH. Shoveling your snow onto my freshly-cleared sidewalk and then claiming the bit of road in front of my house (and this after I just shoveled his walk for him that morning) is asshattery.
If you want to use your car, you shovel it out. If you want to park it and you need a space that isn't clear, you shovel one. It's the price of owning a car, and not paying for the real-estate to house it.
On-street parking spaces are a shared resource. You leave for work, I park there when you're gone, I leave before you get home, you park there overnight, and so on. But just because you shoveled a space you want to claim it 24/7? Sorry, you need to pay for some kind of permit if you want to do that, just like I need to pay for a permit to leave my dumpster on the street.
Otherwise, anything left in the street on trash-pickup day should be hauled off to the landfill.
Maybe you're already done with your parking chair quest, but I'd check out Baywood Street near/in East Liberty. When I used to live there I ALWAYS saw a cool wooden fold-out chair sitting outside with TONS of open space around it. http://gimppac.deviantart.com/art/Chair-series-no-1-78454257 Now instead of tons of open space there's tons of snow...so the chair is actually useful this time!
here's a recipe for family fun and excitement: swap all of the chairs in a 2 block radius with each other and sit back and watch the drama ensue!
I saw a nice selection on Braddock ave today. Chairs of all types, saw horses, upside down trash cans, and ladders.
I like the picnic table in the one photo.
I was pretty pleased to see such a great diversity of parking furniture the other day, on Main Street in Lawrenceville. Here, you can see an orange cone, an overturned table, a regular chair and a door!
I just saw a photo on Facebook of a parking fern.
I rode past a tricycle last night. That's definitely something we can all get behind, right?
That kid better have shoveled every inch of that spot himself.
I just saw a photo on Facebook of a parking fern.
So someone's found a way to "go green" with parking chairs now.
yeah, that christmas tree is on tilberry near the intersection with forward in squirrel hill. i made deliberate, out of the way routes to show it to friends over the weekend.
I can understand shoveling out a space to park and wanting/needing it to be there when you get home so you have somewhere to put your car.
Shoveling out a space and then claiming 24/7 ownership of it (well, I guess I can understand that too - some neighbors are particularly gifted at inspiring hatred and the territorial feelings that follow. but I digress.) anyway, as natural a drive as this might be, I was thinking about how it makes the city not function so well and I was pondering some sort of compromise.
I was thinking it would be cool if, when people put chairs out, if they put a note on the chair as well. The note would be some sort of estimate as to when they'd be back (at least when/if an estimate were possible to make). So if the person works 9-5 and someone needed to park in the spot while they (for ex) visit a friend in the afternoon, they'd just need to get the chair back into its spot when they go.
If we were able to adopt a tradition like that to go along with the chairs, drivers' lives after a heavy snowstorm would be alot easier, although I can't actually imagine it happening.
A few thoughts on parking chairs and snow:
At what point do they become not allowed? When all of the snow is gone, or when that portion of the street is fully parkable?
If the city really was going to enforce the sidewalk clearing rule, could I have knocked on doors of able bodied people and offered to either clean their walk for $30, or complain to the city and bring on a $25 fine, in which case their walk woud still not be cleared.
I think in some neighborhoods, parking chairs are tolerated year 'round.
As for the $25 sidewalk fine--that is the single most ridiculous program I have ever heard about. Based on what the P-G said, city inspectors have to go out TWICE for each complaint (once to see if the complaint is warranted, and a second time to check after they issue a warning to owner). Does anyone think $25 comes anywhere close to covering the cost of the program?
I live at the end of a dead end street near Forbes and Murray, and we get a lot of non-neighbor parkers on our street- even from the apartments nearby with 2 car garages. (I asked one guy about that- he had 3 cars!) I had never heard of year round parking chairs- how would that work? Do you just claim the spot you shovelled in 1996?
As far as the tickets go, in Appleton WI they rigourously enforce the clear sidewalk rule (within 24 hours of end of active snowing) with a $50 fine.
In the city I grew up in in Minnesota, they contract with some 3rd party who will shovel/snow-blow your sidewalk for you if you fail to do so. No fines, but the city would send you a bill for the cost of the contractor. You don't pay the bill? It gets levied against your property taxes.
Seemed like a pretty good solution. Every time it snowed, people were out there shoveling straight away. I never had a problem with snowy sidewalks like I do here, and they get a heck of a lot more snow in MN.
I had never heard of year round parking chairs- how would that work?
People just do it. There are plenty to be found in neighborhoods like the South Side and Bloomfield.
Polish Hill too.
here's some parking chairs that i just noticed in a picture i took in mexico:
Where'd you go (in Mexico)?
mexico city, cuernavaca, acapulco, patzcuaro, tepotzlan...mostly in and around mexico city.
you can check out my photoset here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erokore/sets/72157623562189904/
