Parking changes proposed for some Iowa City streets

A minor change is being proposed for on-street parking rules in some Iowa City neighborhoods to relieve confusion during snow emergencies.

Streets with calendar parking would switch to odd/even parking all of the time under a proposal the City Council is expected to vote on Tuesday night. Most of the streets that would be affected are north of downtown, with a few east and south of downtown.

With calendar parking, vehicles park on a certain side of a street based on the day of the week. Odd/even parking is determined by the date. That is, vehicles park on the odd-numbered side of a street on odd days and the even-side on even days.

There was confusion with the rules last winter, when the city implemented a new snow-emergency ordinance that enforced odd/even parking on most streets so that snowplows had room to do their work.

But streets with calendar parking kept their normal rules because they were already alternating sides every day, which is the goal of the ordinance. Some vehicle owners, however, became confused during snow emergencies, wondering if they were supposed to park based on what day it was or what the date was.

The resolution the council will consider would not change the snow-emergency ordinance, but streets with calendar parking would switch to odd/even.

Darian Nagle-Gamm, a traffic engineering planner with the city, said the proposal would simplify things during a snow emergency and prevent people from being unnecessarily ticketed or even towed.

During a “snow emergency, there's already enough chaos going on, usually, in the city,” she said. “It's just to make things easier for both residents and for the snowplow drivers.”

As with calendar parking, odd/even parking restrictions are enforced 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.