Tell Us About the Best Ways to Hack Parking in Your City
During the winter in Chicago, you can reserve a parking spot with a folding chair, playpen, or a giant teddy bear . Or at least you can try. This is one of the greatest ways to do parking in the world: if you clean out a snow-covered parking space in Chicago and put a placeholder in place, a lot of people will respect your money and won’t take your parking space away from you. This place is yours until the snow melts. Especially if you threaten whoever steals it . But wherever you live, we’d love your local city parking tricks.
What is your local parking lot? Is there a particularly good parking lot for which you can buy a small amount? How do I get free parking near the stadium? A rule of thumb to find open spaces on the street? Recommending one garage over another? A good Facebook group for renting your space to someone else?
Are there exclusive parking spaces in your city for certain modes of transport? Are there non-standard or schematic ways to get a parking permit? Is there a way to extend the parking ticket beyond the normal window?
What are the local pitfalls: street cleaning rules, local laws that are not reflected on signs, dirty tricks that cops are pulling to issue more tickets? Have you found a good solution for this?
What’s your strategy for finding a place? How can you avoid being fooled by fire hydrants and garage doors? What are you looking for, how to identify a car that is about to leave, how to keep someone from colliding?
Don’t tell the world where your precious parking space is. But in camaraderie with fellow drivers, share your best practices and tricks and they will share theirs. Both super-local features and general advice are greatly appreciated. We highlight the best tips in the Personnel section.