Towed

IOWA CITY - Alex Brinker peeked out the back door of his Iowa City apartment Dec. 10 and saw, through the falling snow, his car being hauled off by a tow truck.

“I was kind of pissed,” the 20-year-old Kirkwood Community College student said.

He probably was far from alone, particularly in his neighborhood near the intersection of Burlington and Van Buren streets.

The city had 239 vehicles towed during a 48-hour snow emergency declared because of the massive storm that hit the area. Those owners also received $50 tickets, as did another 76 who moved their vehicles before they could be towed, bringing the total number of citations to 315.

All of those infractions came within several blocks south and east of downtown, leaving violators in other parts of town to get off scot-free.

City officials make no secret of the fact they target streets in those neighborhoods, although they will soon expand their enforcement. They say they have concentrated on those areas, which are popular with college students, because those are busy streets with lots of on-street parking.

They also point to winter two years ago, which saw snowstorm after snowstorm. Many vehicles on those streets were plowed in and some were eventually unable to move until there was a thaw. Also, the more it snowed, the more constricted the streets became, making it harder to get through. It also made them hard to plow.

That was the reason the city revised a long-dormant snow emergency ordinance and put it into effect last year. During a snow emergency, vehicles are restricted to parking on certain sides of a street.

“For people who remember what it was like two years ago, and you drive down those same streets today, it is a 100 percent improvement,” said Chris O'Brien, the city's transportation services director.

To encourage better compliance this year, the fine was increased to $50 from $15.

Public Works Director Rick Fosse said tickets will be written in the outlying parts of the city during the next snow emergency. But towing, for which the city contracts with Big 10 University Towing, will still be concentrated near downtown because it's too labor intensive to go all around the city and those streets remain priorities.

“The reason we tow where we do is those are the streets with the most consequences if we don't plow to the curb,” Fosse said.

That means people like Brinker will still be in the city's crosshairs should they violate the snow emergency ordinance. Brinker spent $157 to get his car back.

“Exact same amount as a (one-way) plane ticket from Miami,” the Orange Bowl-bound Brinker said.