Snowmageddon Revisited

Today's snow won't approach Snowmageddon proportions. Just in case you forgot what last winter looked like, here are some snapshots from Snowmageddon 2010. On February 10, 2010, Washington, DC broke its snow record, with 54.9 inches of snow. The previous record was set during the winter of 1898 - 1899, with 54.4 inches of snow.

Your Own Private Street Parking

I have noticed that people are still using orange cones to reserve public parking spots in the streets (have noticed them specifically around the 3400 block of 14th St). Now I appreciate that during Snowmageddon, if you dig out a space you should reap the rewards from that effort. However, the blizzard is over and the parking reservations should have gone along with it....Is there anything we can do?

So goes a message on the Columbia Heights listserv.

Hotly debated during Snowmageddon was the question:  If you dig your car out of the snow, do you have a moral right to that space and can you "reserve" it by putting chairs, brooms, tables, cones, replicas of the Eiffel tower or other objects in the space?

There are arguments pro and con. On the one hand, it's definitely illegal to claim a public parking space as your own.  No ambiguity about that. And parking spaces belong to everyone: Parking spaces belong to the people. (OMG that sounds hokey, but it's true.)