They still don't have it right

Since I have been in Halifax there has been something of a brouhaha surrounding rules regarding winter parking. After relatively snow-free winter there was much talk about making changes to the rules that would prevent people from being ticketed when there was no snow on the street.

It seems that just a few days ago the HRM council finally got around to making a few changes to the rules, unfortunately they have still left the primary problem in place.

Now instead of tickets being issued all winter long, tickets will now just be issued on nights when the cities issues a snow warning. Another change is that cars will no longer just be ticketed, they will now also be towed. One major consequence of this second change is that the cost to the offending owner will increase almost seven-fold.

Of course the problem is that these changes to do nothing to address the primary problem with the original regime - which is that people don't like being ticketed when there is no chance that the street will actually be ploughed. Furthermore, whether or not snow is forecast for that evening is not particularly important if ploughing is scheduled to take place.

Anyway, I suspect that this regime will have a few supporters as well as a few detractors. Presumably the failure to address the real problem and the increased cost and inconvenience for offending drivers will be the attributes of the new scheme that will be particularly despised by HRM residents.