In an effort to prevent avoidable parking tickets, Berkeley City Council members are recommending that the city implement an electronic reminder system to notify residents of scheduled parking restrictions for monthly street sweeping.
The e-notification system, proposed by Councilmembers Jesse Arreguin and Gordon Wozniak in a recommendation to the council for its meeting next Tuesday, aims to limit street sweeping tickets by using technology to disseminate information about cleaning schedules to residents.
Citations for parking in street sweeping areas are one of the most commonly issued tickets in Berkeley, according to the city’s customer service website.
“Given that we get calls on a pretty consistent basis from people who receive citations for parking in street sweeping zones, it was definitely something we wanted city staff to look into to make information more public,” Arreguin said. “It’s an idea that’s definitely long overdue.”
The current signage to notify residents of street sweeping schedules is confusing and has achieved little success, Arreguin said.
Similar e-notification systems have been implemented across the country and state, including in San Francisco, Albany, Denver and even in some Berkeley neighborhoods.
According to Councilmember Kriss Worthington, one individual on Derby Street in South Berkeley put together an email notification system for that block to remind neighbors of upcoming street sweeping.
A system that the city of Albany implemented over a year ago has been hindered by technical issues, according to Amy Alvidrez, office assistant in the Albany Public Works Department who sends out the notifications.
“There’s some oddity in the system,” Alvidrez said. “It just hasn’t been functioning well.”
To ensure that a similar Berkeley system would operate smoothly, Arreguin recommended that the city partner with UC Berkeley computer science students.
“There’s definitely been an active interest on the part of professors and students at Cal on trying to work on projects that assist the city in providing information to residents and in improving city services,” Arreguin said. “I hope this is one of many efforts to use technology to make information more available to city residents.”
At their meeting next Tuesday, council members will decide whether to send the recommendation to the city manager, who would then analyze the technicalities of realizing the proposal, according to city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAJiHvlAlH8&w=560&h=315]
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I think it has already been done and it’s free: http://berkeleystreetcleaning.com/
Uh, pop a recurring appointment in your calendar with a one day-ahead reminder. This is a solved problem….
10 hours + pizza + 4 UC students = app or web site that allows you to enter 1st-4th Monday, etc of the month, and send you either an email or text message. No need to spend big money. If some guys can develop Smart MUNI app over a weekend, this should be no trouble. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/05/BU7O1LCPJI.DTL
“Citations for parking in street sweeping areas are one of the most commonly issued tickets in Berkeley”
If residents don’t want to move their cars or be cited, they can petition the City not to sweep their block.
“they can petition the City not to sweep their block.”
b/c that will be an effective measure?
seems like the city receives much revenue from these tickets so the city has no incentive to look favorably on such a petition.
In 1991 the city allowed certain blocks to “opt-out” of street sweeping provided that the residents promised to clean up litter/debris themselves… The city did some sort of follow-up study and discovered that the blocks were even dirtier so the “opt-out” policy was discontinued.
The city started phasing all those blocks back into the street sweeping schedule in 2006 or something.
The city cites that the blocks weren’t properly cleaned by residents but I guess you could also argue that maybe the city looked at the lost ticketing revenue as another reason… of course they wouldn’t say that openly.
“to prevent avoidable parking tickets”
But the point is to raise revenue from the tickets. If the City wanted to prevent complaints, they could waive or lower the fines.
I totally support this proposal which I have been advocating for years.
I
have a better idea. How about making it a requirement that the ticket
issuer document that there is actually something that needs to
be swept under a vehicle that is issued a ticket. For the most part,
street sweeping is nothing but a revenue generating scheme for a city.
While on the subject of revenue generating schemes, how about the
Oxford parking trap- the daily circus of the city ticketing and towing
cars parked on the east side of Oxford between Hearst and Virginia
between 4PM and 6PM for no reason whatsoever except to generate
revenue. At one very distant time, Oxford was two lanes in the North
bound direction over that block during those hours, but that has not
been the case for years since it caused a bottle jam at Virginia and
was a dangerous situational with almost daily accidents on that block
and yet there is still no parking during those hours and cars are
towed every single week day, as if there are still two lanes during
those hours. Even at Virginia it is impossible to make a right turn if
on the right hand edge of the street where cars are parked since there
are physical barriers that prevent making a turn at the right side of
the street. It is also impossible to go around a car that is waiting
to make a left hand turn at Virginia due to the physical barriers on
the right. It is ridiculous, and most of the people who get caught in
this parking trap are visitors to UC Berkeley who do not notice the
signs and then have to go through the massive hassle of getting their
car out of Husteads tow yard at a cost of hundreds of dollars-ticket,
tow fees, storage- and usually with damage to the vehicle either from
when the tow driver forced entry damaging window/door seals, possible
transmission and differential damage, and body damage from the cars
being placed literally inches apart at the tow yard. Great impression
of the city to visitors. It is ridiculous.
“something that needs to be swept”
Apparently the whole scheme is meant to remove hydrocarbon residue that accumulates during the summer and washes into the storm drains and the Bay when rain begins.