The parking fiasco

A couple of months ago, my Dad left for Indonesia (for the island of Sulawesi). Since he can't take his car to Indonesia, my brother and I were left to fight for it. For the last year or so I have lived in downtown Toronto, where I always considered parking to be far too big a pain to be bothered with. My brother, however, lives in Waterloo, where there are parking spaces every 5 feet. So, usually, my brother gets the car and I am stuck with the bus.

But, this summer my brother is a Don at UW Place and he didn't want the car so that meant that I could use it. The only question was, where was I going to put it. Behind the house where I live, there is a sketchy concrete "garage". Well, we call it a garage, but really it is just three walls made out of concrete blocks with some wood attached to the top. The wood doesn't even pretend to keep the rain out. Because of it's decrepit state, no one ever parks there, which meant that I could keep the car there.

Unfortunately, the landlord parks his truck at the end of the driveway, blocking the entrance to the alley to get behind the house. This means that when the landlord is home, the car can't be moved in or out. I decide that this is acceptable, since the landlord is rarely home, and when he is home, it is always between the hours of 7pm and 4am. Also, I don't need the car much and when I do need it I always have lots of notice. So, the car makes the first trip to Toronto and sleeps behind the house for the first time.

All is well. I take the car to Rosco's Dad's cottage on Lake Muskoka. We drive to Alison and Chris's wedding. Until one weekend I am coming back from Waterloo and it is Sunday at about 10pm. I arrive home and the truck is already in the driveway. I knew that this day was coming but like the ostrich, my head went into the sand. I can't park on the street in front of the house, because there is no parking from 12midnight - 7am without a permit. I figure that there must be somewhere nearby without permit parking and so I set off looking for it.

The parking places that I consider are:

• The supermarket parking lot
• A pay parking lot, approximately 1.5km away
• The street in front of the house
• The sortof sidewalk area beside our driveway where Dave parked his car for a while
  
• On Ossington St. (the major street near our house)

I nix the supermarket when I see the menacing signs about towing unauthorized cars away and the fact that the parking lot is empty. I look at the pay parking lot, but I would have to pay 6 dollars and still get up at 8:30 to move the car somewhere else. The street in front of the house is out, because I know they'll ticket me. The sidewalky area is not so good since it blocks access to our front steps and I hate it when cars park on anything that even looks like a sidewalk. So, I opt for Ossington St. Parking is allowed on Ossington St. by anybody except from 7-9am and 4-6pm from Monday to Friday. This means that I have to get up at 7am to move the car. After I drive around for 1.5 hours, I decide that this is the best option and I set my alarm.

Now, I'm not sure what kind of people run the parking system in Toronto, but for some reason, you can park on Ossington overnight but not on Shaw St. (my street), and you can park on Shaw during the day but not on Ossington. I wonder if they sit around saying, how can we get people to do ridiculous things, just by making silly parking rules. It seems absolutely ridiculous that they would encourage you to park on a major street, but if that's what they want, who am I to disagree. I end up waking up at 5am to go to the bathroom and the landlord's truck is gone, so I move the car.

From this incident on, whenever I ride my bike anywhere in the city, I look for spots where you can park overnight with no permit. I play frisbee, and some of our games are 20 kilometres away from downtown, but even on those bike trips, I find very few places to park.

Except, deep in the heart of the Annex, on Barton St., between Brunswick and Albany St., there are a precious 21 parking spaces (if all of the cars are careful) for parking whenever you feel like it. I check all of the signs on the whole length of the street, and find nothing. I check the cars parked there at 10pm and find that nearly all of them are without parking permits. Could it be? Can I park here? Well, the next time I arrive home late at night, I decide to try and grab one of these spots. As it turns out, you are allowed to park there.

This baffles me even more. It appears that the people who run the parking system want everyone to do ridiculous things to park except for the select few who know about the parking on Barton St. They must know that this section has parking allowed, since otherwise there parking officers would ticket us. Also, it can't possibly be that the residents of this street want you to be able to park there whenever you want, since it means that they can't park there.

In the end, it seems like the parking people are about as organized as the urban planners of the city who built the Allen and organize the bike "routes" in the city.