This is a re-post of an essay that was originally published in the local newspaper and to the BLOG back in 2015. Since I’ve moved into my own place down at the south end of town in April of 2019, I’m not having to deal with all this winter parking regulation stuff. I park my car in a particular spot, and don’t have to move it that often to accommodate snow plowing. In a weird sort of way, I actually miss the winter parking shuffle. On the other hand, I don’t…

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Petroglyph Parking

Procedures

I’m presently participating in the Town of Silverton’s winter parking cavalcade. The main highlight of this unusual, necessary, but always entertaining process is the individuals taking part in the project must have their car off Main and/or Blair Streets and parked on a side street location during RED ALERT nights before midnight. During “Hum-Dinger” snowstorms as my father so fondly referred to them, it allows town snowplow drivers to encounter a clear, unencumbered path when plowing snow into the center of the street between the hours of 2:00 am and 8:00 am the following morning.

This system seems to work pretty well for the most part, but it does cause a bit of consternation. If the following day happens to be a positive one, the person is required to park their car on that particular part of the side street. Negative dates on that side of the street. Pretty basic except if you’ve just taken the last three or four hours to dig your automobile out of the snow and the sun is starting to get low in the sky. About ready to set during these bone chillingly cold and short days of December and January.

Maybe you should move the car to the other side of the street since tomorrow happens to be an even numbered day and all vehicles are required to be parked on that side? It’s still an odd day though so technically you should leave the car planted exactly where it happens to be? Everybody else in your particular neighborhood is moving their cars to the other side of the street for tomorrow so logically you should do the same? What to do in these odd situations?

In my case total confusion usually sets in. Besides wishing I had a permanent parking space off the street, which has a miraculous way of solving all these problems, I start envisioning all sorts of other solutions.

What if I had a vehicle that could levitate itself, fly up the mountain, and plant the car at the summit of that nearby peak? A little bit windy on top of that ridge, and probably a bit colder, but definitely lots of available parking spaces.

Suppose I could take the car on an extended road trip? Some sort of tropical environment that doesn’t even have any snow. Then you can park wherever you want and only worry about getting a ticket for planting the vehicle in a NO PARKING Zone. A few of my friends wish they had this option at their disposal.

What if I didn’t own an automobile? Then I wouldn’t even have to move the vehicle since I didn’t have any sort of responsibility in the matter. That’d be so sweet, and it would definitely solve a lot of problems. Then I remember the last time I had to use my thumb to travel from point A to point B. Took me a while to hitch a ride since I hadn’t shaved in three days, and that gave me a swarthy, unkempt, just released-from-incarceration look. Good for landing certain acting roles in Hollywood, but I’m not a professional thespian so that option obviously doesn’t make much sense.

The winter parking situation in Silverton is actually pretty mild in comparison to the somewhat convoluted one I had to experience while living in Telluride. As part of their winter parking plan, various sections of town are broken down into zones of parking. Individuals are required to move their car out of a particular zone on certain days following a big snowstorm into a different spot. This movement of your car is to take place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Or if you live on that side of the street, move your vehicle on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays. Sundays are reserved for deep contemplation about living in car-free environments.

Needless to say, there were numerous times when I’d mention to another local that I worked at the public library and had full-time access to the facilities’ under-ground parking lot. Parking whenever I wanted to, and never having to worry about freezing my hands and feet off while moving the car to another location. In these situations, they’d then offer to pay me $2,000 or $3,000 dollars to purchase my parking permit. Sometimes I’d actually contemplate participating in this financial transaction.

There are basically three key words in an analysis of Silverton’s winter parking situation, The System Works. For all the bitching and moaning that people do about having to re-locate their car to another spot every time we get hit by a great big “San Juaner” as another friend of mine refers to these winter storms, the mechanism functions pretty smoothly. That still doesn’t stop me from making fun of it though.