La Crosse gets alternate side parking policy right

It has been rare this winter that we have had to dig out our shovels. It has been even more rare that the city of La Crosse has had to send out its plow trucks. The plows were called into service only for one snowstorm back in January. The plows haven’t been needed during this mild winter, so we haven’t had to move our cars to the other side of the street every night. The city’s decision to end alternate side parking as we know it was certainly a timely one. Imagine if we were still having to re-park every night for months when it is 70 degrees outside. But the city of Madison is still writing tickets for people not parked on the proper side of the street. That city’s alternate side parking season still stretches from mid-November to mid-March. Police there wrote more than 7300 alternate side parking tickets this winter, even though their winter was as mild as ours. It was a waste of time and resources to ticket people when no plow trucks would be coming through. Thankfully, the city of La Crosse realized that just in time for our mild winter.