No escape from street cleaning tickets

This column is part II in a series of columns inspired by getting a parking ticket. Part I… This column is part II in a series of columns inspired by getting a parking ticket. Part I ran about five weeks ago and advocated a higher price for parking permits to free up space. Today, I treat a less obvious, more sinister issue.

Have you ever noticed how immaculate the streets of South Oakland are? If so, know that those streets don’t clean themselves to such luster. If not, you’ve probably noticed that South Oakland’s streets are clogged with the bottles, cups and beer cases that earn our neighborhood its ” Dirty South” moniker.

However, there is a street-cleaning machine. Phone polls bear warning that certain awful dawns will herald his wrathful arrival – you’d better park elsewhere those mornings.

The signs are ambitious, with a bold, persuasive type, so you know this is an endeavor of moral and practical gravity. It’s like if Utah Beach had had signs reading, “D-Day is coming. Get the hell out of here,” because if you’re parked on the wrong block at the wrong time, the street sweeper can’t execute his duties. Woe then to the neighborhood, and unto you, interloper – the neighborhood spoils, and you get a $15 ticket.

Despite the tickets, even on street-cleaning days, the curbs are jammed with cars. If you wanted to get a ticket on Meyran Avenue today, you probably couldn’t for lack of a place to park. Instead of a spot, all you’ll find is a busy policewoman, happily slapping fines on Oakland’s hapless drivers. Why are we so resigned to these fines? Consider:

Let’s say that it’s the first Thursday. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., you’ll get a ticket if you park on certain blocks. But between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., where will your car stay? At first, when you’re confronted by the problem, you think, “I’ll just park on a different block.” But there are often no empty spaces in an entire zone – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday blocks included. In Zone D you can cruise 20 minutes before finding any spot at all.

To think that all of the cars on Thursday blocks could move elsewhere for five hours is preposterous. Meanwhile, parking outside your zone will get you a different ticket for $15. It’s a Catch 22.

On my side of Meyran alone, there are about 40 cars even on street-cleaning days. That number multiplied by $15 a piece is $600. When you consider all of Oakland getting raided twice a month, it’s clear that what pretends to be a public service, a public expenditure, is really a source of public revenues.

The streets of South Oakland, it is said, are paved with mold. The Street Cleaner can’t perform his purported job, because most of the blocks he’s scheduled to clean are inevitably full, and even – what’s more interesting – necessarily full. But he still has a job, a true job. Essentially, that true job consists of showing up to work for his purported job and saying, “I can’t do this.” He is like a boxer who takes dives for a living.

Then, you’ll find that paying the $15 ticket demands a $3 convenience fee, but don’t dare pretend that your ticket is really for $18. It’s kind of like how bread is $2, but when you buy it the cashier gets flustered and says, ” Oh. So you want to pay for that? You just have to pay for that, don’t you? I’m sure. Well then it’s gonna be $5.”

But actually, now that I think about it, that doesn’t happen, and my ticket is really $18. I wonder, would people complain about taxes less if taxes were called convenience fees? Imagine a CEO opening an envelope from the IRS: “It’s time for your $20 pledge to social insurance, defense and infrastructure. For convenience please include 35 percent of your income.”

You might conclude that we should give street cleaning the axe. In a way, though, street cleaning isn’t a bad way to raise revenues. The losses of citizens, in fines, exactly balance the gain of the city government. With property, sales and income taxes, on the other hand, citizens’ losses exceed the city’s gains: Citizens pay a share of their economic activities, but because taxes reduce incentives to build, buy and work, citizens realize less economic activity in the first place.

In contrast, street cleaning tickets don’t alter incentives much, because people generally can’t avoid them. This is really zany if you think about it, like if the city fined right-handed people on Saturdays. My main suggestion is that the city stops actually sending out the street cleaner. It is a big machine and looks expensive. The parking officer can hold her own, maybe with a broom and dustpan in the trunk for propriety’s sake.

Equity-wise, however, these tickets are a very regressive source of funding, just like the lottery or a poll tax. No matter one’s income, the risk and size of the fine is constant.

Join the cause. E-mail Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu.