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Sidewalk swine

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springfield parking hogs

Hope you’re good at hurdles.

In my neighborhood, people don’t just park on the street. They park on the grass between the sidewalk and street (called the CROW, for City Right of Way). They park on their lawns. They park in the alleys. And they all too frequently park on the sidewalk itself.

That last part pisses me off. I guess it pisses a lot of people off here in Springfield: Somebody posted about it on the Springfield Facebook group and it quickly got 80-some comments. So far I haven’t seen any Nazi analogies, but with this group it’s only a matter of time.

If I were going to be a Nazi about anything around here, it would be people parking on the sidewalk. That and people wandering down the street shouting obscenities, or scattering fast-food wrappers like they’re all competing to be this year’s Johnny Appleseed of Litter.

But certain people, you don’t expect much of them. Certain people you do: say, people who are able to drive decent cars and live in decent houses. People who have plenty of space at the curb, and frequently plenty of space within a fenced driveway. Somehow, they still opt to park straddling the sidewalk. More convenient that way, I guess — for them. Never mind the moms with strollers, the halt and the lame, the active-but-easily-annoyed middle-aged men who are forced to squeeze past a bumper or detour into the street.

It’s a quality-of-life thing, OK? Sidewalks are for people, not cars. Below are a few offenders seen on a recent two-mile stroll around the ‘hood.

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Comments

  3. I used to live in a town with a population of 1500. They did things like this and more. Note the used to. Things are so civilized and orderly where I live now. Except for the circus clown in my building who emptied their dust buster full of cat fur, litter and dust onto the mulch by the rear entryway! Grrrr!

  6. There is no reason for this..so, the “Law of Equal Inconsiderateness” gets to be applied… the following supplies required: a piece of sidewalk chalk so you can write “A**hole Parking Only”, or a small can of some honking colored spray paint- just a nice small splat of paint, applied to a corner of the bumper or fender.. And before everyone weighs in on this being vandalism, well, this kind of parking is pretty egregious, too. Just sayin.’