Storm Update: 412 Ticketed, 353 Towed; Downtown Parking Ban’s Coming Back

By Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent

NEW HAVEN, CT — The city ticketed a total of 412 cars and towed 353 for snow emergency violations during this long weekend’s winter storm — and plans to reinstate a parking ban for downtown Tuesday night to allow for public works to remove those remaining huge piles of snow.

City spokesperson Lenny Speiller provided the Independent with those ticketing-towing numbers Tuesday afternoon. He said that those numbers were current as of 10:30 a.m.

The Elicker administration put into effect a citywide parking ban at 10 p.m. Saturday to help clear the way for city snow plows to do their work as New Haven was walloped with roughly a foot of snow between Sunday and Monday.

The parking ban meant no means no parking was allowed on the odd-numbered side of the streets in residential areas and no parking at all on marked emergency routes and downtown. The city lifted the snow-emergency-route and residential parking ban at 6 p.m. Monday, except for on 11 narrow streets. The city then lifted the downtown parking ban at 5 a.m. Sunday.

Speiller told the Independent that the city now plans to put back in place the downtown parking ban beginning at 9 p.m. Tuesday and lasting through 5 a.m. Wednesday.

That to-be-reinstated downtown parking ban is designed to give public works the space needed to clear snow from several downtown streets and “remove snow piles to help increase visibility for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.”

For residents in need of overnight off-street parking options, Speiller said, there are free / low cost parking lots available here:

• Designated Yale lots – Free (6 lots ; free from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m.)
• Downtown garages — $3.
  • Granite Square Garage – 690 State St.
  • Temple Street Garage- 1 Temple St.
  • 270 State Street Parking Garage Available
  • Wednesday day-time hours: there will be a half-dozen select narrow roads that will have a daytime parking ban to facilitate DPW snow removal. A New Haven Alert notification will be sent to residents on those blocks, along with street sign postings. (Working on getting you the list of streets, but think of this like a street sweeping notification.)

Speiller also said that, during the daytime on Wednesday, there will be a half-dozen select narrow roads that will have a daytime parking ban to allow for Department of Public Works snow removal.

What about those 11 narrow streets where the residential parking ban was never lifted?

Those streets are Edgar, Morris, Waverly, Eddy, Scranton, Poplar, Maltby, Clay, Lloyd, Cottage, and Avon.

“The previous list of 11 streets are still actively being cleared,” Speiller said, “and we anticipate most of that work to be completed today. However, residents on those blocks should continue to review postings signs regarding parking notifications.”

The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.