Guest Column: U-Turn Parking on Solano is Rude, Dangerous and Illegal

For two decades I have been observing Albany traffic from the big window of my 2nd-story office on Solano Avenue. The building is right at a corner, and the view is at an angle looking up the street. So I have seen a lot of bad behavior, including fistfights, brushdowns and full-throttled cuss-outs as cars and pedestrians challenge each other's right of way. I am way sick of errant car alarms and thumping speakers.

But there is a phenomenon peculiar to Solano. Let's call it U-turn parking. You are driving up (or down) Solano, looking for a place to park. You spot a space, but it's on the other side of the street. And it's angled to accommodate oncoming traffic, which means it's pointed away from you. So you slow and then do a big sweeping U-turn that, in theory, brings you across the oncoming lane at just the angle you need to ease into that open spot as you complete the maneuver.

U-turn parking is a bad idea for several reasons. 

Depending on the size of your vehicle and your ability to gauge the curve and distance, you either make it, or you don't. Since most drivers who try it fail, they end up blocking traffic as they straddle Solano and block both lanes, wiggling back and forth to correct their trajectory.

U-turn parking is dangerously stupid. The person backing out of the space next to the empty one you're aiming for is watching oncoming traffic in his or her lane, not looking to see if someone is circling around from the other direction. Crash!

U-turn parking is illegal. Have you noticed that down the middle of Solano are two solid yellow lines? They mean you cannot cross except to enter a driveway. Or at least that's what I thought they mean. I recently wrote to the Queen of the Road column at the Contra Costa Times about this, and the Queen initially told me that a U-turn across double yellow lines is OK. But then her own readers checked in and said true, but not in a commercial district. And, since Solano is a commercial district, a U-turn to get into a parking slot on the opposite side is illegal, that is, a ticketable offense (see Section 21460 of California's Vehicle Code).

So, Albany police force, would you care to begin enforcing the law?