Dallas Is Filling Its Impound Lots With Seized Cars

Flickr.com Photo

The City of Dallas made good on its threat to enforce an "uninsured motorist ordinance," and has reportedly been seizing cars on a massive scale, according to this article from Channel 11 in Dallas, click here.

In the first nine days of 2009, Dallas police...

...reportedly towed 256 cars. This does not include vehicles towed from accident sites, so that would be mostly seizures. Drivers who are pulled over simply lose their cars if they don't have insurance. They rack up a fine, towing charges, and $20 a day for impound fees.

There are certainly much better incentives to make drivers buy insurance, incentives which don't hurt people so badly in a tough economy. Dallas is driving down the wrong road, and if Dallas thinks there won't be political "push back" from all those upset drivers--poor and uninsured, though they may be--then Dallas is collectively out of its mind.

It is sad and frustrating to see some cities making sensible progress, click here for an example, but then to see such brutal, regressive practices spring up in a major city like Dallas. You have to wonder "WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!" And why do citizens just knuckle under, like that, and swallow such abuses?

Directing Attention Toward Solutions, Not Just Gripes

My little saga with Towing Utopia began with the seizure of my van in Minneapolis during a snow emergency, click here, and my sense of violation and my certainty there is something fundamentally wrong with the system if vehicles are being seized because--good grief--SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN MINNESOTA, SURPRISE, SURPRISE.

My goal in 2009, as I stated in this blog post, click here, is to figure out how to give this website a greater impact. Having my van seized AGAIN--this time because it was stolen and recovered--and having to make a trip to the impound lot AGAIN made me think, "What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? How can I do better?"

Therefore, I have decided every one of my blog posts--EVERY ONE OF THEM--will have two things at the end.

1.) A link to a post suggesting regulatory steps cities commonly undertake to stop predatory towing practices. I have not yet written this blog post, but I will.

In the meantime, some fairly common regulations include: limits on how far vehicles can be towed, regulation of parking lot signage, and prohibitions on "cash only" policies. Anything cities can do to make their systems transparent--to make it possible for all concerned parties to track vehicles on the internet, and have a record of the facts and fees--is particularly good.

Archaic "cash and carbon paper" systems have to go the way of the do-do bird, or citizens will inevitably be abused.

2.) A link to Compiled Logic, click here, a company in Houston, Texas that helps cities solve their towing problems with high tech solutions. This company works closely with reputable towing companies, cities, police departments, etc.

They're businesspeople, not bloggers, so I hope they won't mind unsolicited free publicity.

In my experience, Ron Smith of Compiled Logic is a pretty great guy, super friendly as a good salesman should be. So I don't think he'll mind.

I'll do this because Compiled Logic has some high tech solutions for more transparent, less abusive towing systems. In 2009, I want anybody who stumbles on this blog (while investigating these predatory towing issues) to instantly have an answer to this question:

"Where can my city go to get some help with this problem besides writing about it on a blog?"

Madison, Wisconsin Tries To Minimize Towing Abuse

Flickr.com Photo

Madison, Wisc. is using a tactic I have suggested other northern U.S. cities should adopt: they tow vehicles to legal parking instead of impound lots, charging fines which sting, but are NOT outrageous.

According to...

...NBC 26, click here, recently 182 cars were cleared from a vital snow emergency route in Madison. The vehicles were taken to a nearby street where parking was legal, and tickets were slipped under the windshield: $50 for the ticket, $60 for the tow, a total of MERELY $110.

Montreal uses a similar tactic, and I've gone out of my way to publicize it, click here.

However, superior even to the "Montreal Model" (which is now the "Montreal/Madison Model") would be electronic notification by email and cell phone, what I call the "move it or lose it" model. Why move cars to the next street? Notify the drivers and watch them come rushing out of their houses, cell phones and Blackberries in hand.

The personal and economic disruption of towing must be minimized. Madison is doing the right thing. There's room for a lot of improvement, but Madison is heading in the right direction.

Real Time Internet Towing Data Needed, Too

However, what happens when approximately 182 people wake up in the morning and wonder where to find their cars? They're going to be calling on the phones, jamming up the system, getting themselves late for work, slowing down the economy.

That's why towing data should be online. People would come to learn they can go to a website and find their car, rather than spending time on hold, cussing.

An Amusing Side Note

One local blog referred to Madison's scheme of alternate side street parking as a "memory tax," click here. Funny.

Madison is doing better than most northern U.S. cities. Hats off to Madison. And, oh gee, this is the first Wisconsin entry on the "Towing Utopia National Map." Madison, you're the star pupil today.

Pawlenty's Veto Stalls "Towing Nightmare" In St. Paul

(Photo from the Pioneer Press, Rep. Alice Hausman)

I'm sure it never even occurred to Governor Pawlenty, but his recent veto of $127 million worth of projects in St. Paul may have stalled the "towing nightmare" which the light rail (Central Corridor Project) was getting set to create, by eliminating 600 to 900 parking spaces. I've written quite a bit on this subject already, but this incredible veto is a new twist.

There's no relief, however. The City of St. Paul still engages in notorious and abusive towing practices, and I'm hoping to make my way out to their impound lot in the very near future to document some horror stories. So the fact the light rail project is delayed doesn't mean relief from a nightmare, only relief from an even-worse-nightmare.

And I feel bad the project was vetoed. I love the light rail and ride it several times a week to places like Mall of America. I was hoping the light rail would expand. (Gee, what happens to all the developers who have poured millions of dollars into property along the proposed route?)

Exclusive Towing Utopia Scuttlebutt, Rumor, Wild Theory And Dark Innuendo

Right now, political thinkers in Minnesota are going nuts to figure out why Governor Pawlenty came down so hard on St. Paul. According to the Pioneer Press, "(Alice) Hausman, chairwoman of the House Capital Investment Committee and chief sponsor of the bill, was the peacemaker who tried to broker a deal between Pawlentry [...] and Senate Democrats."

Pawlenty came down like a ton of bricks on St. Paul with his line-item vetoes, and yet he didn't go after the "pet projects" of his "fiercest antagonist," Senator Keith Langseth. The democrats in state government are asking why, why, why?

Simple: the City of St. Paul will be host to the Republican National Convention in 2008. And right now, St. Paul's leadership has shown little indication of a willingness to "crack down hard" on the unruliness promised by tens of thousands of demonstrators, who will be pouring in from all over the country, trying to create a "Battle In Seattle" situation by their own public statements a full year in advance of the actual event.

My theory is Pawlenty--who shows every indication of being a vice-presidential candidate for John McCain, is using the St. Paul projects as a "bargaining chip" to force action and promises from St. Paul to crack down hard on the demonstrators who promise to disrupt RNC 2008 in a big way.

That's my theory. Got a better one?

The Wabasha Street Caves Conference On Abusive Non-Consent Towing

(From Flickr.com, a historic photo of Castle Royal Night Club in 1933, now known as Wabasha Street Caves, which was quite the speakeasy and hangout for Prohibition-Era gangsters, back in the day. A fun location for the first activist conference on abusive non-consent towing)

Summary: OK, so it wasn't really a conference but me talking to my smart public administration grad school classmates at the annual Humphrey Institute Banquet.

I came up with a brainstorm about preventing abusive towing practices from private parking lots, such as by alerting drivers their car will soon be towed the same way the cities should issue such alerts.
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"Towing Talk" Over A Few Drinks

My grad school had a nice formal banquet with Dean Atwood buying everybody free wine, so you couldn't beat that, especially when I had a teetotaler at my table and managed to get not only my own wine ration, but also liberated a merlot.

There were hours of socializing, and I told a lot of tomorrow's administrative movers-and-shakers about what I was trying to accomplish by raising issues about abusive non-consent towing practices.

"Think of it," I said. "At one time, people didn't really have consciousness about an issue like police brutality. That was just how things were, and everybody accepted it. But people started to wake up, and now everybody is aware there is, at the very least, such a thing as police brutality, and many things are being done to reduce it and stop it."

"So," my classmates would say, "You're saying abusive towing--"

"Non-consent towing," I clarified. "Huge distinction."

"OK, you're saying abusive non-consent towing is like the new police brutality? That people have been enduring it for a long time, but you want folks to wake up and start fighting about this issue?"

"Exactly!"

Hands to chins. Thoughtful nods.

"Huh," they'd say. "Maybe you're on to something."

Towing All Tangled Up With Human Relationships

I couldn't talk about abusive non-consent towing all the time, though. The President of the Public Affairs Students Association, Graham Arntzen, has a smoking hot girlfriend, (Maylyan) and he left her in my custody while he went around shaking numerous hands. The "other Graham," whose last name I keep forgetting, is also a major player in student government. He kept walking away from his date, too, and the poor little dear (Malin, it's Swedish) hardly knew anybody in the whole cave. So I was constantly keeping them company.

I am nothing if not dutiful and responsible.

And we were, I emphasize, in a cave. Yes, they kept leaving their women...in the cave. And it was only the other day me and Arntzen had a conversation, the theme of which was, "If it wasn't for the civilizing influence of women, men would still live in caves."

Therefore, what is going to stop abusive non-consent towing? Probably mommies with little children being mistreated and harmed, not angry men pounding their enraged fists into Plexiglass but then, the next day, getting over it.

Indeed, the best non-consent towing insight of the whole night came in a conversation with a young woman in the parking lot, (where the smokers congregated) a discussion which started out talking about the mysterious nature of romantic relationships, as enlightened by Dr. Date, the anonymous campus dating advice columnist. (Here's a fine example of a Dr. Date column, which came up in the course of the discussion, in regard to the "sacred ritualistic aspect" of a woman giving her phone number to a guy)

This particular young lady (short, blond, pretty, age 23, works at Caribou coffee on Washington Ave. SE, dressed in a black cocktail dress and long string of fake pearls to go with a kind of 1930s gangster theme some folks indulged in at Wabasha Caves, reads "Dr. Date" before reading anything else in Minnesota Daily, but heck if I know her name) had a customer whose car was towed by mistake.

His car shouldn't have been towed--the guy had come in to consume a latte or whatever--and yet he was indeed towed. So this sympathetic girl told him, "Look, you shouldn't have been towed. I'll be your witness. Here's my phone number. If anybody has any questions about it, have them call me and I'll say it was a mistake."

So the guy gets his car back. And then what does he do? He keeps calling the girl, dropping by, trying to get a date...to the point she needed to just about hide in the back of the store. She did, however, take comfort in some of the things Dr. Date had said about how to handle a situation like that, or not get yourself into one in the first place, by being mindful of the "sacred ritualistic aspect" of giving a guy your phone number.

She pointed out how, yes, she gave him her number...but giving your number to be a witness to an unjustified tow was a completely different matter than just handing a guy your phone number, wasn't it? Indeed, I agreed, it certainly was.

Forget Romantic Relationships--Let's Talk Towing!

The problem I saw here, I told her, was the distinction between "rabidly enforced" towing in private lots, versus "posted lots with de facto slack."

"Take McDonalds in Dinkytown, for an example," I said. "Their lot is huge, and it has about half a dozen warning signs...yet I've never seen anybody towed from that lot. They really don't seem to keep track of who is in the lot. It seems quite easy to go inside, buy a burger, but then slip out the back door to, for example, mail a letter at the post office and maybe do some quick shopping. OK, I'll admit...I do that. All the time."

But, she pointed out, this particular Caribou Coffee has eight precious parking spaces, and needs those spaces to stay in business. They can't really afford to be generous with their parking, the way McDonalds can. That's why she, personally, is always calling to get somebody towed who is just "stealing parking."

Thinking about this administratively, I thought, "The problem is the auto driver has no way to distinguish 'rabidly enforced' private parking from 'posted lots with de facto slack. One could eyeball the situation and judge...this business doesn't have a lot of parking, so many they guard it jealously...but how can you KNOW?"

People need a place to park, desperately, and everybody knows rules get bent all the time. The same person who is calling the tow truck may be in the opposite position tomorrow or next week...cruising, opportunistically, for a place to park "just for a minute."

Why is harsh, expensive towing or nasty notes left on windshields the only alternatives for private business? I've read articles--and I could post some examples--of customers who became permanently alienated by a business which towed them, a business they once patronized...albeit they also patronized the business next door, a moment later, while parked in the lot of the first business.

If I've been saying the City of Minneapolis, for example, should have a clever and high-tech way to "warn the driver" just prior to a tow, so why not give private businesses access to the same system? They wouldn't need to obtain the contact info for the driver...it would be a simple matter of typing in the tag number of the vehicle into a website, and generating an alert to the auto owner's cell phone.

A Way To Distinguish "Rapid" From "Slack" Private Lots?

I also had to wonder if there could be a way to "administratively distinguish" rabidly-enforced lots from other kinds of lots...and what kind of a bucket of worms this might open up. Let us say, for example, any lot of a certain size which saw 100 tows in the previous year would be required to post a red "rabidly enforced" sign. And, furthermore, only parking lots which really did tow 100 cars could display the scary red signs.

This would serve as a great warning for vehicles, wouldn't it? However...what if businesses said, "We need to get the scary red signs. Let's tow 100 cars in January and February, though we can let it go for the rest of the year." The warning signs might give an actual INCENTIVE to tow.

No, what might be useful would be if drivers could access the data through a system like OnStar, and know their odds of getting towed from a particular private parking lot.

The most practical way seems to be...just having a better way to warn drivers they are about to get towed. Only the most mean-spirited business manager really WANTS to tow somebody, a person who could be a customer tomorrow (albeit a parking moocher today) and most business managers would prefer to just have the car go away by being driven out of the parking lot, not towed, because heaven knows we often find ourselves on "the other side of the hook."

Keep Building The Movement To Reform Abusive Non-Consent Towing

These are the kind of ideas I had at Wabasha Caves, and discussed with my classmates...well, along with some other topics, like the work I'm trying to do in North Minneapolis to get crack houses boarded up and revitalize the neighborhood, as a relentless do-gooder.

I work to get other people on board, so I won't be the one-and-only "non-consent towing activist" in the nation. Maybe one day there really might be something like a "Wabasha Caves Conference." We will all talk, exchange ideas, exchange contact information...and then emerge from the caves to create a slightly-better world.

Tricked And Trapped On Washington Ave. SE

The City of Minneapolis appears to use calculated, deliberate ploys to write tickets and tow vehicles on Washington Ave. SE, and area frequented heavily by students and out-of-town visitors. I've fallen for their little scam myself. Here's how it works.

You pull up to a meter on Washington Ave. SE. You see other people parking there, so you figure it's OK to park. You check the meter to see if you really have to put in money. The meter says it is enforced from Mon-Saturday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and then lists a bunch of holidays when parking is NOT enforced. (The phrase "University holidays" is tricky and ambiguous, too, but let's concentrate on the big stuff)

If you glanced at a sign on the street, you'd see a big yellow sign repeating information from the meter, and warning you. METERS ENFORCED MON-SAT UNTIL 8 p.m. Maybe you check your watch and think, OK, it's 2:30 p.m. so I definitely need to pay, but if I keep feeding quarters in the meter I could stick around here and shop until 8 p.m, and then parking would be free after that. Cool.

So you put in your money and go off to shop at the University Bookstore, eat in a restaurant, or whatever. You come back an hour later. And your car is GONE.

It turns out there is lawyer-like fine print. You won't find it on the meter itself. You won't find it on the big yellow sign which warning you about meter enforcement until 8pm. If you look at a nearby pole with five--seriously, count 'em--FIVE signs mounted to it, you'll see the fine print on the third sign down.

NO PARKING 7-9 AM, 3-6 PM, MON-FRI.

This sign just fades into all the visual clutter and, in effect, contradicts the meter itself and the big yellow sign at the top of the pole, which would lead any reasonable person to conclude the meters require payment from 8 a.m to 8 p.m., but if you pay you can park there, and if you get caught not paying, well, you'll spend $35 to $40 on a ticket.

Every day except Sunday, the parking enforcement comes out there and collects a bountiful harvest of revenue. Almost always gets towed.

This is what we get from the City of Minneapolis. BOOBY TRAPS created for the benefit of revenue collection and towing companies. Once I saw a car being hauled away with its car alarm going, as though crying out for help.

How would this be fixed? Well, besides the idea I keep harping on...personal email and text message alerts for individual car owners, warning of impending tows...the messed up and confusing situation on Washington Ave. SE needs to be clarified and un-clutted by affixing small individual signs to each meter pole, bearing the words "NO PARKING 7-9 AM, 3-6 PM, Mon-Fri.

Of course, the light rail will take care of it all when it runs down the middle of Washington Ave. SE and over the Washington Avenue Bridge. We'll lose all that parking...and the cars will try to find other spots to park, creating a towing nightmare.

Yes, the "towing nightmare" I alluded to in St. Paul does stretch into Minneapolis along the planned light rail route, and it goes through the heart of my campus.

An Open Letter To The Central Corridor Community Advisory Committee

SUMMARY OF POINTS:

1.) Lack of meaningful public participation in the committee meeting.

2.) Elimination of on-street parking is creating a potential "towing
nightmare."

3.) The future: one of the side streets made into a one-way,
elimination of even MORE parking, loss of low-income housing
replaced by daily and hourly parking lots.

Dear Central Corridor Community Advisory Committee,

This blog entry is both a report on what I witnessed at the meeting of February 20, 2008, plus input (or an "open letter") about the proposed light rail line.

For more on my view on how the project is creating a potential "towing nightmare," see previous post.

I read about the meeting in the Pioneer Press and noticed the convenient location. As one person posted on the comments page to the Pioneer Press article, the meeting was probably held at Goodwill because there is plenty of free parking right along Fairview Avenue. How ironic that a plan set to eliminate so much parking needs a location with plenty of it. But I'm not griping about the elimination of parking spots along University Avenue, only the abusive towing practices which I am certain will result. (See previous post)

Public participation? NOT TRUE

When I first arrived at the meeting, and was the very first to sign the attendance sheet, I asked one and only one question: would members of the public be allowed to speak at the meeting? I was told that sometimes took place at the end of the meeting if there was time. I have heard this line at so many public meetings and yet somehow I always fall for it. Call me a dreamer. Even sitting there and reviewing the minutes of the previous meeting, I should have realized the lack of opportunities for the public to give input, but I still sat there for two hours, hoping for an opportunity to speak for, at a maximum, one minute.

Silly me.

It appears when public comment is wanted, a special "listening meeting" will be scheduled. However, I don't think "listening" is something that should be specially scheduled, at a time a committee feels is convenient for the committee. Government "listening" is something which should take place all the time. An opportunity for the public to speak at public meetings which concern their fates and their futures should be STANDARD at all government meetings, at least at the municipal and county level where the time would most likely be utilized by grassrots members of the public, instead of (for example) professional Washington D.C. lobbyists.

They don't speak for ME

Supposedly the members of the committee represent me. But I didn't see one committee member I knew beforehand, nor do I recall any opportunity to vote for these committee members. So they did not represent me BEFORE I heard their views, and AFTER hearing their views such as a cranky rant about the need to crack down hard on rampant jaywalking, I can now confirm 100 percent no member of the committee represents my views.

In fact, I saw very little evidence members of the committee have the expertise to comprehend the light rail information being put before them, though heaven knows they appear to be trying. What I remember most about the meeting was Anne White, of the District Councils Collaborative, stating that she was forced to file official requests for information, by which I assume requests under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.

What's up with LACK OF ACCESS?

Repeatedly, I heard Anne White asking for "access" to information, such as the technical reports on which the plans were based, and the results of interviews with local businesses about their concerns. If members of the committee are not getting information easily and quickly about the light rail, then what is the purpose of the committee? Window dressing?

I may not share Anne White's concerns about the elimination of parking--at least, I am not concerned in precisely the same way--but if these members of the committee can't get the information they need to inform themselves and their grassroots constituency, then I have to question if the committee is a "committee" at all, or just an elaborate pretense to create the illusion of public input.

Dr. Park And Mr. Hide

Besides the difficulty Anne White voiced in getting the information needed to fulfill her role,
I was also struck by a phrase uttered by one of the other committee members: "Park and
Hide."

Instead of using a "Park and Ride" location, the changes brought about by the light rail will apparently encourage the practice of "Park and Hide," where individuals find places in nearby residential neighborhoods to park, then catch a light rail to their destination.

This strikes me as realistic. In fact, I have done the same thing myself, driving my vehicle about a mile to a location near a No. 16 bus stop, and leaving it there to catch the bus. The practice is so rampant near the University of Minnesota (especially the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood) residents don't even bother to complain. Indeed, most of the residents are student renters, anyway, and less prone to complain. This is another reason it is a perfect "Park and Hide" situation.

What am I, a CHAIR?

But back to the meeting. I had hope for a minute when the oh-so-perky chair of the meeting said she was going to take time to "go around the room" and take comments. However, by "the room" she actually meant the members of the committee seated at the tables, and not those of us who were physically IN THE ROOM.

I guess we had somehow become INVISIBLE through the mysterious process of having a "representative" at the table, since we weren't even included in a phrase such as "the room."

If I'd had an opportunity to speak for one minute, this is what I would have said:

Speech, speech!

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Think beyond the elimination of parking to what happens next, which is citizens getting towed as they fight like feral dogs for the remaining scraps of parking. Imagine what happens in the neighborhoods as people engage in--and thank you so much for the phrase ma'am--"park and hide" practices. Residents are going to be complaining about those vehicles, making demands for vehicles to be towed away.

What have you done to modernize your towing and impound lot system? Cars get towed and caught in that system for days. Low income people suffer, and there are a lot of low income people who will be using the light rail, but might be parking their vehicles. If this is supposed to help the low income people, how are you helping them by creating a towing nightmare?

Yes, put through the light rail. And I'm not mourning about the loss of parking. But consider the towing nightmare you're creating and how can the City of St. Paul make its towing system less brutal, less random, less expensive for all concerned?

Also, though nobody likes to say it--and I don't like to say it, either--it seems inevitable you will need to take one of the side streets next to University and make it into a one-way, eliminating even MORE parking.

Also, you're setting up a situation where low-income housing is likely to get torn down and made into daily and hourly parking lots. It is possible to churn more money out of one of those lots with paid parking than with rentals, if you know what you're doing. I say this as a former rental property manager. With the housing market in a 30-year slump, this is right where your plan seems to be heading.

Zoning be damned, the paid parking lot folks will push for and obtain variances, especially if they're tearing down blighted housing. Folks are likely to view a parking lot as a temporary situation which will later give way to better development. And how much political power do low-income renters have, anyway, when even businesses owners are powerless to stop the light rail which is--dare I say?--barreling down on them like a train.

I don't see anybody articulating these ideas, and I wasn't allowed to articulate them at the meeting. But here they are.
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That's what I would have said.

Oh, and then of course I would have plugged my blog, with its rocking new domain name: www.towingutopia.com

So there you have my input, dear members of the committee, though I was forced to take the long way around.

Light Rail Moves St. Paul Toward A Towing Nightmare

SUMMARY:

1.) Nobody seems to perceive the "towing nightmare" shaping up
due to elimination of parking spots along light rail route.

2.) "Merging" of lanes is utterly impractical with buses stopping in
the right lane, especially with time delays due to disabled
passengers.

3.) Run one No. 16 bus one block off University. Create a one-way
street on the less-developed side. Eliminate MORE parking,
unfortunately.


According to the Pioneer Press, St. Paul's light rail plan will mean the loss of at least 625 parking spots. If more stations are added--which many are hoping for and pushing for--as many as 985 parking spots could be lost.

Am I the only one who sees a massive "towing nightmare" shaping up?

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_8631434

Who mourns a frog?

This article talked about a meeting taking place, and I noticed it was conveniently located at one of my favorite thrift stores, where I have purchased--for example--the cool Star Wars light saber my little son calls "Mr. Stabby."

When my son has weekend visitation, and we go to sleep in my deluxe apartment not far from St. Paul's notorious "Frog Town" neighborhood, I sleep with my baseball bat--"Froggy Frogtown"--and my son sleeps with his toy light saber, "Mr. Stabby."

The light rail is going to run right through the heart of Frogtown and--like a frog in science class--I suspect that beating heart will be cut right out, as a kind of "sacrifice" for some notion of "progress" for "the greater good."

Not that I'm opposed to light rail. I'm very much in favor of it. But to pretend it won't change the core of those communities through which it will run...naive at best, and outright deception at worst. Some of those businesses, like the thrift stores and the small ethnic eateries, simply won't survive. The property values will go up, and the all-too-earthy aspects of Frog Town and Midtown will become yuppiefied and gentrified.

Which is good. Portions of Frog Town are really scary. When I drive through with my son, we play a game called "spot the dealers." The Midtown area isn't much better.

I see the future, and it's a traffic jam

But anyway...I went to the meeting of the Central Corridor Community Advisory Committee, which was held in a very nice community room. I learned a lot about the proposed light rail, including why eliminating so much parking was virtually unavoidable, and turning the street into two lanes was equally necessary.

The technical explanations made sense. In fact, after watching a video simulation of driving down the future University Avenue, I was in favor of eliminating even MORE parking. The idea that two lanes would become one lane in order to save parking spots...it just struck me as a nightmare and numerous fender benders waiting to happen. GET RID OF ALL THE PARKING on University Avenue, I say, and ram the light rail down the middle.

Plus the idea that buses would simply STOP in the right lane and traffic would wait behind...well, I've seen that along Fourth Street near Dinkytown, and it leads to accidents, near misses, and high levels of frustration. Bad idea.

I've seen times it takes as much as five minutes to get a disabled passenger on or off the bus due to awkward wheelchair movement and things that go wrong as the driver tries to secure the disabled passenger. It's not unheard of for two passengers in wheelchairs to get on together, or exit together, or for one to exit while another enters. It can take a LONG time. Traffic is going to be backed up from Transfer Road all the way back to the State Capitol, I swear.

Honestly, Metro Transit should run one of the No. 16 buses one block off University, at least on the less developed side. Turn that streets into a one way. And, yes, eliminate even MORE parking. There's really no other way around the problem. Are you hoping people will live with the problem for a few years and then demand changes? Because that's the situation I see being created with present plans.

Your fish decal won't stop a tow

So begins the towing nightmare. Parking in that area is already a brutal game of "survival of the fittest," and now St. Paul is poised to eliminate (at a minimum) 625 spots and could eliminate, potentially, 985. Meanwhile, both St. Paul and Minneapolis are engaged in abusive towing practices which--as the previous St. Paul horror story makes clear--appear to especially target low-income people who lack off-street parking.

Every time there is a s0-called snow emergency, St. Paul already tows ONE THOUSAND CARS. Now the situation appears poised to become WORSE.

Unacceptable.

The parking may very well need to be eliminated. I am not arguing in favor of keeping more parking or using productive land for nothing more than spots to stash vehicles. Though "my identity is all tangled up in my wheels" I am appalled at "car culture" ruining the world.

But abusive towing has got to stop, and where I see St. Paul heading is a towing nightmare.

More on the meeting itself in another post.