Are people in pittsburgh angry and/or confrontational? (Penn Hills, Clarendon: landscaping, to live)

[youngabe]

Now this is just me and my warped hatred for on-street parking, BUT...I just moved to Mt. Washington in March. I love my house, I like my neighborhood, but I'll hate on-street parking until the day I die! I was used to having a nice garage, but this was a compromise I made for my move. Trust me, I gained a LOT by moving so this is minor...but I digress!

I'm to the point that if I could pay a monthly fee to anyone (resident, city, etc) to lease a parking space on my street or in someone's personal driveway, I would. It would solve problems when it snows--I'd always have MY space (eliminating "the chair"), and it would just be nice in general to never have to worry about where I'm going to park my car no matter what time of year it is. Sadly, that's probably fantasyland-ish and something I'll have to just deal with! My next move will have to have at LEAST some sort of one-vehicle parking spot, pull-off, something, anything!

Now for a comment related to the topic of this thread! The only time I am angry and confrontational is when I'm driving. I'm TERRIBLE, self-admitted, horribly aggressive and crazy. I'm not proud of this and I try to work on it, but I seriously need road-ragers anonymous. (This should exist!) The second someone does something stupid, my horn, finger, arms, etc. are going. I want to confront the idiot and make sure that he/she realizes they are indeed STUPID. Friend that know me say I could scare the pants off the best LA, DC, or Boston driver. Surprisingly, I've always fit right in when I visit the mentioned places...hrm... Whew, anyways, yup, that's really my only admitted angriness as a Pittsburgher! If you meet me on the street, I promise, I ENJOY being nice!

[Picksburg Stillers]

Originally Posted by hnsq

I did clear out a spot. I simply left it clear and someone else parked there after I left (as it normal for city streets).

Last winter, during the giant snowstorm, I didn't save a space and ended up clearing out 6 spots on my own in the three days after the major snow.

So you are welcome. If it is really about 'respecting the work someone did', then I can safely assume you never park in ANY space that is cleared that you didn't shovel, right?

If you go to visit a friend, you dig a completely new space out instead of parking in one that is already clear, right?

Let me give you a visual, to help out.

This is on-street parking. Everyone pays for it through taxes. It does not belong to you. You do not own it. It sure is nice of you to clear it out, but it is shared access for everyone. Please treat it that way.



This is a driveway. No one but you is allowed to park in it. You own it. You paid for the privilege of having a private space for your car, and because of that you get the benefits of only having to shovel once. You can put as many chairs here as you want.



The next time you go to put a chair where you car was, please look to see if the space looks like the first or second picture. If it looks like the first, have some respect and do not do it. If knowing you have a place to park no matter what is that important to you, please move to a place that looks like the second picture. Thank you.

Yes, I do not take spaces that are saved. It's for the same reason that if I am at a beach and people have their things set out where I want to put mine but they are playing in the water I don't simply move their stuff and set my stuff down. Or if I am at a movie theater and someone is sitting where I would like to sit and they get up to go to the bathroom, I don't move their drink and popcorn and take their seat.

[hnsq]

Originally Posted by Picksburg Stillers

Yes, I do not take spaces that are saved. It's for the same reason that if I am at a beach and people have their things set out where I want to put mine but they are playing in the water I don't simply move their stuff and set my stuff down. Or if I am at a movie theater and someone is sitting where I would like to sit and they get up to go to the bathroom, I don't move their drink and popcorn and take their seat.

You are more than welcome to a different opinion. I gave the reasons I dislike 'parking chairs', but obviously there are some who don't agree with me. I am not going to keep up this debate, as neither side is going to be dissuaded from their opinion because of this thread.

A parking chair is the urban equivalent of seeing an old car up on cinderblocks in the front lawn of someone's house. The person who put it there had a good reason to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a low-class, trashy thing to do.

[MeinGlanzendMotorrad]

That's not a very good analogy at all. One is someone using their personal property in a way your nose-in-the-air self doesn't approve of. One is someone using public property in an illegal and selfish manner.

This whole debate has made me decide to go take all the chairs and sawhorses up and down my street and burn them. >:|

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

I believe I posted something similar to this the last time the chair issue was discussed, and I don't recall anyone stepping up and giving an answer...

The chair isn't there necessarily to reserve a specified physical space, as much as it is there to protect the labor that went into clearing that space. I'd love to hear one of the anti-chair contingent make a reasonable justification for depriving a neighbor of the fruits of their physical labor in clearing the snow from a given parking space, or convince me that when you move the chair and park there, that isn't exactly what you've done.

Shoveling is a part of dealing with heavy snowfall. You don't own the street. I could care less how hard someone has to shovel. Life's tough.

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

I could actually use some new furniture for my back porch. Methinks I should drive around in my trusty Mazda and snatch up those chairs people are just leaving by the curb!

Let me know. In all honesty, I pick the chairs up and throw them while I'm out running. You can be my pace car and I'll throw them in to the car instead.

[subdivisions]

Actually, I think the analogy to the public beach is a good one.

There generally aren't any official laws stating that an individual has the legal right to reserve a sitting spot on a public beach with their umbrella, towel, & cooler. Technically, anyone who does that is pretty much doing exactly what a Pittsburgher does when they put their chair down to reserve a parking spot on the street - they're depriving someone else of the opportunity to put their umbrella or towel there without having any legal justification whatsoever for doing so.

But the social norm on public beaches is generally understood to be that one respects the space that other beach-goers have staked out for themselves. The reason that social norm exists is to reduce potential conflict between all the people using the public utility. So maybe one beach-goer decides that he doesn't like that social norm because it doesn't personally mesh with the way he thinks the social dynamic should work, or because it doesn't personally benefit him or whatever, and he says, "I'm moving your towel and taking this spot, because you were up getting ice cream and anyway it's NOT LEGAL ON THIS PUBLIC BEACH for you to reserve a spot with your towel, so too bad, sucker!"

What do you think will happen then? Is what happens then a good thing for any of the beach-goers in the vicinity?

Native Pittsburghers have worked out a system for public parking like the beach-towel system on a public beach. When someone comes along and says, "this isn't the way I personally think it should be done, so *********r chair, sucker!", it causes conflict and unhappiness. I personally think it's incredibly arrogant for anyone to just declare themselves above the system like that, ESPECIALLY a transplant who is in the minority in this city. It's like being a tourist at a beach and just deciding that you know better than the locals how things should work there. That takes some pretty big cojones (and that's not a compliment).

[ditchdigger]

(Understanding that I no longer have a dog in this fight, because I've long since moved to the land of personally owned off-street parking, which of course would see me vilified for other things (but I digress). Just as a matter of principle, leftover from my years in the land of the parking chair, and because arguing this topic is fun...)

Originally Posted by hnsq

I already posted a few reasons, but here goes again.

1. It is a public street. Not your personal driveway.
2. Everyone cleared a space, so who cares where they park?
3. Leaving lawn chairs on the stree is very low-class and makes the neighborhood look like crap
4. It is the Northeast in the winter. If you didn't think you would be clearing snow, that is your fault.
5. You CHOOSE to live somewhere without parking. Struggling with on-street parking is a downside. Deal with it or move to a place with its own private parking.

I can give more if you want.

None of those address the crux of the issue, which is that, in a situation where every parking space must be cleared of snow, what makes it ok for me to clear a space, and then not have it available to me, while you, who have not cleared a space, do have one available to you? That's really the moral basis for the whole question.

I did clear out a spot. I simply left it clear and someone else parked there after I left (as it normal for city streets).

Last winter, during the giant snowstorm, I didn't save a space and ended up clearing out 6 spots on my own in the three days after the major snow.

YA SHOULDA PUT OUT A CHAIR! You had to shovel five extra spots because you were too hoity-toidy to conform to the local convention. I hope your feeling of superiority compensated for your aching back.

Originally Posted by scottrpriester

Shoveling is a part of dealing with heavy snowfall. You don't own the street. I could care less how hard someone has to shovel.

If I find you in a spot I shovelled out, and reserved with a chair, I'll shovel you back in. (With a clear conscience, nay, a smug feeling of justice served that'll compensate for my aching back. Sorry, I can't agree with LMP on the egg thing. The punishment should fit the crime.)

Life's tough.

You said it.

[ditchdigger]

Originally Posted by west seattle gal

I don't mean to offend. A friend of mine who lived in Pittsburgh four years ago said that there are a lot of seemingly angry, confrontational types in Pittsburgh.

Now the genesis of this thread has become obvious. She shouldn't have moved that chair...

[SteelCityRising]

Imagine if EVERY jagoff in this city shoveled out TWO spots each time it snowed. Just imagine. I routinely shovel out a spot for myself and a spot for my landlady, as she usually doesn't get home from work until around 9 PM (we hardy Polish Hill residents work ourselves to the bone! LOL!). This past winter I ALSO shoveled out around vehicles of other neighbors whom I have yet to meet.

Aching back? Heart attacks? Perhaps if you're out of shape, take too much weight on each pass of the shovel, and don't bend at the knees as you're supposed to. I find snow shoveling to be FUN, and it gives me such a rush afterwards to be soaked in sweat in the dead of winter AND to know I did the "right" thing by helping others in my neighborhood.

If someone comes along and parks in the space I shoveled out for my landlady will I call them a jagoff? Nope. I'll just shovel another space. Problem solved. It isn't THAT hard to shovel out a parking space. Sheesh!