For drivers who live in apartments and in cities without the luxury of off-street parking, one of the more frustrating sights can be looking in the rear view mirror to see another vehicle glide into the parking space you spent so much time laboriously shoveling snow out of.
Technically, that’s the downside of parking on a public street. But in some places there is a strange and parochial custom called “savesies” that drivers and residents use to address that situation.
That’s the practice of leaving an object in the empty parking street space as a place holder to save the spot until you return. In sections of Philadelphia and Boston, savesies is a way of life, with chairs, garbage cans, traffic cones and in the case of Philly, a religious statue that police removed from a vacant shoveled out parking space.
But this parking Hunger Games practice also happens in New Jersey.
“I grew up in Hoboken in the ‘50s, ‘60s, where shoveling out a parking space and saving it with a garbage can was pretty common and moving it could lead to a fistfight,” said Len Bier, a parking consultant.
Boston sort of allows “space saving” by permitting it for 48 hours after a declared snow emergency ends, he said. But Boston bans the use of “space savers” in the city’s south end, according to the city website.
In Pittsburgh, the unofficial practice is enshrined with a name - the Pittsburg parking chair, or “parking chair” for the folding chairs used as a space holder, Bier said.
The practice even has a #NoSavsies Twitter page, documenting the more bizarre objects used to save parking spaces, including mattresses, old toilets and a propane tank perched on a step ladder in one instance.
“Occasionally, we do receive some calls when someone tries to save a space after shoveling their vehicle out of the snow,” said Robert Baselice, North Bergen Parking Authority executive director. “Fortunately, we do not get many.”
When it happens, a parking enforcement officer will move the object blocking the space and if someone is present, they’ll politely explain “it is a public street and although they have spent the time and energy to clean the space, they are not able to save the space once they move their vehicle,” he said.
“We are actually putting something on our website because I was told someone had notified us recently that they experienced this during a snowstorm and we wanted to make the public aware,” Baselice said.
In Philadelphia, savesies is such a common practice that police have made videos discouraging it including one that parodied a popular song to encourage people to report blocked parking spots.
In some cities, blocking a parking space with an object can result in a hefty fine.
Washington, D.C., and New York prohibit the practice of reserving on-street parking spaces using objects, Bier said. In those cities, the object is removed and the responsible parties are ticketed, which in New York City has a fine of up to $2,000.
In other places, specifically Boston, drivers who decide to move objects and parking in “reserved” spaces risk retribution by street justice, where the offenders can get a flattened tire or broken window instead of a summons.
In December, a woman who moved a chair that was saving a recently shoveled space in Passaic returned to find a slashed tire and spit on the vehicle she parked in Passaic, WCBS-TV reported. The incident as reported to police who removed other items from saves spaces, similar to what Philadelphia police have done.
Passaic officials couldn’t be reached for comment about whether they’ve had problems since then.
In some places towns have avoided having to deal with space savers by declaring a snow emergency that bans parking to allow plows to clear snow right up to the curb, Bier said. Others use the alternate side of the street regulations to plow out parking spaces, he said.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.
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After shoveling snow out of an on-street parking spot, is it yours to save? - NJ.com
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