Time for common sense in alternate-side parking

Are more changes needed to La Crosse’s alternate-side parking law? The city forces people to move their cars each night to park on the odd or even side of the street each winter, presumably to make way for snow plows. Of course, most nights we have to move our cars, there is no chance of plows coming through. Mayor Tim Kabat tweaked the law this year, or at least the enforcement of it, pressing pause on the law for the past couple weeks when there was no snow on the ground and little chance of it falling. With our first real snowstorm of the winter, La Crosse police are again enforcing the law and writing $15 tickets. It is understandable that the city enforce the law when it is snowing and the plows are called out. But it doesn’t make sense they write tickets when roads are clear. That is why the La Crosse city council will consider at its next meeting a change to the alternate-side parking law so that enforcement of the law doesn’t begin until there is at least two inches of snow on the ground. That makes sense. City hall has long insisted the law isn’t about generating revenue, but what other reason is there for ticketing people when there is no need to move their cars? It was a nice reprieve from having to move our cars the last couple weeks, but without a change in the legal language, alternate-side parking next year will begin November 15, regardless of whether there is snow on the ground. Let’s finally try to prove this law is about more than money, and change the law so we don’t have to remember to move our cars for no reason.