There are many neighborhoods through the nation where the roads seem overly narrow.
You know the roads where I am talking about, these are the roads where you have to pull over to the curb to let another car pass. You drive another quarter block and you and a car pulls over for you. A little further down the block you pull over again and let someone else pass.
<insert photo of Trestle Glen, Oakland>
As you drive you are constantly eyeballing the empty parking spots where you can pull over so you can continue your journey through the neighborhood.
The street was never inteded to be like this. When the streets were laid out in the earlier part of last century, families only had one car. This car would be taken to work by the husband. Upon his return in the evening, the car was parked in the garage or at least in the driveway.
The streets were for actual driving with lanes in both direction. Once in a blue moon you would have a visitor to someone's home parking in the street in front of that person's home.
<insert photo of Lewis Avenue, San Leandro>
Now-a-days, you have families with multiple cars, cars for him and cars for her, cars for the teens and cars for recreation on the weekends.
Garages are now used as storage lockers and the cars that once stayed in the garages are now in the driveways.
All the other cars are out into the street, parked on what used to be a two lane road. These cars are clogging up the road ways.
I know of several streets where vehicles are so dense it's very crazy just to travel a few blocks without having to pull over many times.
What does this do for our Police, Fire and Ambulances? It slows our emgerncy response times down, that's what is does!
Be a good neighbor and park on your own property if possible and leave the roadways in the congested areas back for driving.
Do the neighborhood associations have to start enforcing CC&R restrictions about parking on the streets?
Look around next time you're on one of these streets and try to imagine what it was intended to be like, Imagine Model A Fords freely passing each other on a tree lined street without having to go around each other.
It was rather serene at one time.
