SNOW EMERGENCY DECLARED IN ROCKVILLE — Begins Friday, Dec. 18 at Midnight
Dec 18, 2009 18:14 - 3 Comments
>This from the City of Rockville’s alert service:
Rockville City Manager Scott Ullery declared a snow emergency that will go into effect Friday, Dec. 18, at midnight, giving residents notice that they must move their vehicles off of neighborhood roads where possible or to the designated side of the street to allow Department of Public Works crews to more easily plow snow. The current forecast calls for a significant snow accumulation.
Rockville’s snow emergency plan is geared specifically toward helping clear residential streets. Most jurisdictions that have snow emergency plans apply those plans to major streets. After the City Manager declares a snow emergency, residents are requested to park their cars in available garages or driveways on their properties. When that is not possible, residents are required to park only on sides of the street with even house numbers. Once that lane and the main part of the street are cleared, cars must be moved to the cleared curb (odd-numbered side). Violators may be ticketed or towed. When both sides of the street are cleared, cars can be parked in regular spaces.
Conditions leading to a “snow emergency” are significant, deep snow, or forecast for such conditions.
The “snow emergency” ordinance states:
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- Residents with driveways must park all vehicles there.
- Residents without driveways, or who have more vehicles than will fit in the driveway, may park on the even-numbered side of the street only.
- In courts or cul-de-sacs, where house numbers are not even on one side of the street and odd on the other, parking is allowed only on the left side of the streets as one enters the cul-de-sac or court.
- No parking is allowed in the “bulb” of the cul-de-sac or court.
- After the snowfall ends and the odd-numbered side of the street is cleared, vehicles must be moved to the odd-numbered side to allow plows to clear the even-numbered side.
- The City may remove or impound cars improperly parked.
- A fine of $100 for a “snow emergency” parking violation may be incurred.
For more information about the policy, contact the Public Works Department at 240-314-8566.
In addition to the parking restrictions, residents are reminded of the Snow Ordinance, which requires that snow must be removed from all sidewalks, steps, driveways, parking spaces and the paved right-of-way sidewalk immediately fronting or abutting a property. This includes access ramps and curb cuts designed for use by people with disabilities.
Snow and ice removal must occur within 48 hours if it is more than three inches. Call 240-314-8330 for more information.
For more information, go to www.rockvillemd.gov and click on Inclement Weather under Top Stories.
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Any interesting sites where I can see a snow storm photo stream? I’ve tried Flickr, but didn’t find much there. Couldn’t find a geographically oriented site at Google either.
I live on one of those small side streets and every snowstorm since the snow emergency plan has gone into effect, I have yet to see a SINGLE resident on our street actually move their cars to the even- or odd-numbered side of the street. As a result, the plows have only been able to do a hit-or-miss job for years, but there is no attempt at enforcement. After all, the parking enforcement people can’t get into our street any more easily than any of the people who live here can get out at the moment.I think that part of the problem might be that a significant percentage of the current residents on our street don’t speak English as a first language, and even though I’ve seen the snow emergency info in Spanish in the Rockville Reports, it’s in the middle of the publication – and I can’t see someone who doesn’t speak or read English well bothering to look through a newsletter “just in case.” I’ve tried to explain to one of our Spanish-speaking families myself about it before one big snowfall a while back, but they weren’t understanding me and my Spanish isn’t good enough to explain it clearly.The plows went through our neighborhood two nights ago doing the best they could, but by then people were home from work, parked all over the place, and there was only so much the plows could do; the best they could manage was to plow shut half our 2-car driveway around the vehicles that were parked on our end of the street.It would be very helpful if we could find ways to really publicize the snow emergency requirements. Yes, we can argue till we’re blue in the face that ignorance is no excuse for noncompliance, but where the snow meets the road, there’s no compliance, no enforcement, and no real results, at least on my street.
Deb,We have a similar problem in our neighborhood with the parked cars and plows. If I may get on a (snow covered) soap box for a minute – part the problem, as you pointed out, is communication of the “rules” to all citizens. One might easily extrapolate this problem to low voter turn out for City elections. Coincidently our new mayor is looking for volunteers for a new task force on communicating with the citizens of Rockville.Oh and for the record the mayor lives on my street and we still have the same parked car/no enforcement issue.