Parking issue living near a school.
Hi all. My partner and I have reached our wit's end with the rudeness of people constantly blocking our driveway. We live across the street from a middle school in Berkeley and just today for example, we had 3 different cars throughout the day that hung over and blocked our driveway. Yesterday, after living here for 9 years, we for the first time had to tow a car because it made it impossible for me to get out to get to an appointment. To people parking on the street, it doesn't look like they're blocking our driveway that badly, but our driveway is at a really odd angle to the street and when they hang over into it, it makes is incredibly difficult to back out. We have to drive through ours or our neighbor's yards in order to get in and out if it's blocked. We both work from home and come and go quite often throughout the day and despite putting up "No Parking" signs, having our curb painted red, emailing the principal of the school and having several people ticketed, nothing seems to work. The scariest was when my partner was 5 days past her due date and somebody completely blocked the driveway for a couple of hours on a weekend so the police were slow to respond. (I now have BPD in my speed dial on my phone, something I never dreamed would be the case!)
I've noticed as I've driven through both Albany and El Cerrito, both towns have gone through the trouble of painting parking spaces onto the street that are adjacent to their schools in order to help remedy this issue. Does anybody have any other suggestions on how to deal with this? Other people in our neighborhood have painted parking spaces themselves, but from what I understand that is technically graffiti or vandalism. Or does anybody have any suggestions on how to work on getting the city of Berkeley to paint parking spots on the streets directly connected to schools where this is a problem? At this point we're so frustrated that we're considering buying another vehicle just to park it in such a way that nobody else can park there.
Thanks.
Parent Replies
Hi, I have a somewhat similar issue but on a smaller scale. I live across the street from a daycare/preschool and am constantly dealing with that issue. I also have a pretty narrow driveway that makes it difficult to pull in/out if people are right up against it. I haven't had to tow or ticket people yet but I have had confrontations and had to speak directly with the owners of the school (who I must admit do make a point to remind their parents constantly about the parking issue). Have you considered purchasing a somewhat large planter box and putting it on the to keep people from parking a reasonable distance from your driveway? I'm sure there are permit issues with the City of Berkeley but that might be a cheaper/environmentally pleasing way to solve the issue.
I don't know of anyone would respect a cone, but you cold put a cone or a large cement planter on the street.
I've found physical obstacles help.
- get some big safety cones and put them in the area you don't want cars.
- leave your trash can in front of the curb cut
(I lived across from a church for ten years and also dealt with being blocked in and having to tow people so that I could get to work).
I used to leave laminated notes as well (you are blocking my driveway, please don't do it I. The future) but I don't think it was effective.
I don’t know if any of this would help but I would do three things: 1. Buy orange traffic cones and place them in front of the red zone on each side of your driveway. 2. Contact the Berkeley School Board since the principal has not been of any help (I would see if other neighbors feel the same, multiple comments from the same neighborhood might get their attention). 3. Call Berkeley’s parking control and ask them to ticket in your neighborhood during pick up and drop off times for a week non-stop then periodically after that. Sometimes a week of frequent tickets can really improve the behavior of rude drivers. I believe the school has a responsibility to lessen the impact on neighbors but they so rarely do. Schools should be reminding parents that they are not to block driveways and they should have some pick-up and drop-off system so that people do not need to get out of their cars to pick up their children. Good luck!
Could you park on the street yourself? And if/when it's available, park in the spot nearest your driveway (even blocking your own driveway)? If it were me in your situation, I'd like to think I'd just try to find a practical solution like this to make sure I could move my car, and not focus so much on my frustrations with other people that I can't control. I understand that it's probably really frustrating, particularly when it's really egregious, but it sounds like sometimes it's not egregious it's just an honest mistake. As a parent who wishes I lived right across the street from a school, and wishes I worked from home so that I didn't have to frantically run around to drop off my kids at various schools on the way to my hellish Bay Area commute, I am guessing that other parents in my situation appreciate your patience with us!