urbanMSP

I still really like the idea of buying out a parking garage in DT to support cars there. Or we could just not impound as many cars..

The City owns plenty of parking garages (and a few surface lots) already. No need to acquire anything. Might require restructuring the contracts with the operators of those ramps though.

http://www.minneapolismn.gov/parking/ramps/index.htm


DATA NEEDED: How many cars get towed during a typical snow emergency? (Not including cars towed/impounded/held for other reasons concurrently)

I think many ramps have relatively low clearance, which can make roll-back-type tow trucks hard to use in a ramp. I wouldn't be surprised if this was cited as a reason for not using a ramp as an impound.

Perhaps this found its way into another thread (I know we previously talked about it in "Northside General Topics"), but I'll share here: http://blogs.mprnews.org/cities/2015/01 ... nneapolis/

I'll leave the geographic disparity stuff over others to blow out of proportion, as I'm most fascinated by the clusters of tows, particularly those towed on Day 1 (brown dots on the map). You'd figure Day 1 is like the hardest day to get towed in the first place, since: it's been actively snowing that day, and most of these are the major routes that already have some kind of parking restrictions (meters, time limits, etc.) Looks like LaSalle/Blaisdell through Loring and Whittier is a major tow generator on Day 1.

Interesting that the snow emergency tow zones contracted out to the city's year-round towing providers (Wreckers and Rapid) are the ones seeing the least towing. They don't get paid as much per car, though that's probably due to their year-round status. The difference in towing between the southeast part of zone 3 (Wreckers) and zone 6 (Williams, a snow-emergency-only contractor) is particularly stark.

What would clear up the imbalance? Should the map be more like a checkerboard or patchwork quilt, with each contractor getting a several smaller zones? Or maybe all the contractors should have free rein throughout the city?

It's concerning that the city encourages towing closest to the impound lot. Why? What benefit does it give to the city? There are much more important areas in which to focus towing.

And the racial disparities do matter. I'm sure they aren't intentional but outcomes is what counts.

Does the city encourage it? I can see towing companies targeting the nearest neighborhoods just because that allows them to tow more in one night. Faster to tow in and faster to get back out to tow another. Low hanging fruit, so to speak.

It's concerning that the city encourages towing closest to the impound lot. Why? What benefit does it give to the city?

My only guess is that it's a faster tow. With a limited number of trucks, the faster the tows the more cars that get towed. Unfortunately, those of us on the other side of the zones never see tows and have to live with weeks of snow mounds turned to ice mounds in the street because the plows plowed around un-towed vehicles.

I'm curious if part of the reason the southwest quadrant of the city sees fewer tows isn't just distance, but also because more people in the area have off-street parking? I don't get down to that area enough to really remember, but the few times I have, parking on the street has been such a nonissue.

I would guess that the incredibly high voter turnout rates in Wards 12 and 13 correlate very strongly with high parking compliance. These folks are more likely to be paying attention than the rest of the city. They're also primarily single-family home areas and are more likely to have off-street parking, as xandrex suggested. I still suspect that it is more of the former (paying attention) and less of the latter (parking availability). Plenty of home owners' garages are packed full of shit and they have to park 1-2 cars on the street.

Does the city encourage it?

According to the article, yes. And I can see how closer distances allow faster tows and thus more clearing of problems. Still, this is the sort of unintended consequences thing that advocates for racial equity run into all the time. It's not the intent but it's the outcome.

I'll refer back to the multiple impound lot idea which would mitigate this problem. So would tow-around-the-corner.

^You would think that tow around the corner would be the quickest of all options. Assuming, I suppose, that there's room actually around the corner. I assume that would be quite an issue in the Wedge and Whittier.

Do people have any thoughts on if Minneapolis could/should move to a plowing system like St. Paul's?

St. Paul plows all of their streets in a 24 hour cycle, while Minneapolis' snow emergency takes 48 hours to complete all streets, including a 12-hour period between Day 2 and Day 3 where they are plowing nothing.

On Day 1 (aka Night 1), Minneapolis only plows their emergency routes, while St. Paul does the emergency routes and also knocks out one side of their N-S streets. On Day 2, St. Paul hits the E-W streets (both sides) and the other side of the N-S streets.

I wonder how the two cities compare on a tows per capita basis... you could probably even compare among various sectors of each city. When you think about it, it's really stupid for the two cities to have different sets of rules. Aside from the densest (aka parking deficient) Mpls neighborhoods of Stevens/Whittier/Wedge/CARAG/etc. (denser than anything comparable in St. Paul), it's tough to make a case for why the cities should have different rules. Getting the plowing done sooner (and therefore back to normal parking) would seem to outweigh any drawbacks of an intensified parking crunch during the snow emergency.

There are times when Mpls' "Day 3" plowing occurs more than 3 days after snowfall. Say it snows heavy late Sunday night. Snow emergency gets called Monday (night). Day 3 plowing is then Wednesday...when it stopped snowing at midnight Sunday. Rightfully, a lot of people find that ridiculous.

I heard secondhand that there was a recent meeting about the Impound Lot. Does anybody know more about this?

Haven't heard a peep but I also haven't talked to Harrison folks in a while. Harrison is restructuring its organization and doing community outreach. I thought it best not to stick my nose into that.

Here's the current thinking about the Impound Lot from the T&PW Agenda.

Spoiler alert: It's not moving.

Only time I'll ever say this, but just build a ramp!

Only time I'll ever say this, but just build a ramp!

One of the reasons given for contraction:

decrease in the day-to-day tow volume

Really? Why?

Short of building a ramp (or moving it next to the airport), covering the whole thing with solar panels is one of the better ideas I've heard proposed.

Minneapolis solar and organic farm. All food goes to fighting child hunger in the city.

We can dream.