Today’s newsletter is presented by San Carlos Community Garden.
Hello, Navajo and College Area!
I got a parking ticket the other day. I was about 8 minutes late getting back to the meter from having a beer with an old friend who was visiting from the Midwest. To make it even worse, I decided to be a pal and pick up the tab. Needless to say, coming back to a $53.50 ticket made me really question if rekindling an old friendship was worth it (Ok, it was).
So, parking tickets have been on my mind, mostly trying to remind myself to pay mine before I forget.
On Friday, while driving down Golfcrest Drive at the base of Cowles Mountain, I was reminded of an old story I did on parking tickets at Cowles Mountain at a local TV station where I worked about nine years ago. My story was on the high number of tickets for wheel cramping.
As I drove to the store, seeing all the hikers’ cars lined up on both sides of Golfcrest, the topic of parking tickets fresh on my mind, I wondered if wheel cramping tickets were still common on Golfcrest.
I logged on to San Diego’s data portal and downloaded this year’s parking citation dataset.
A bit of filtering later, and lo and behold, citations for wheel cramping on Golfcrest were not only common, but the several block area near Cowles Mountain had the most wheel cramping tickets citywide this year.
According to the data, parking officers wrote 851 tickets to drivers who didn’t turn their wheels to or away from the curb since the beginning of the year.
That was nearly twice the number of wheel cramping tickets that parking officers wrote to drivers on La Jolla Shores Drive, the second-highest spot for wheel cramping tickets citywide so far this year.
So, what about last year? Well, Golfcrest took the top spot for wheel cramping as well, with 1,128 tickets issued. That was 225 tickets more than the second-place spot for wheel cramping, which was Juan Street in Old Town.
A reminder for all you hikers: Cramp your wheels. And for the rest of you: Those parking officers are out in full force. Don’t forget to feed the meter.
Dorian Hargrove
Mission Times newsletter host
Navajo, College Area story spotlight
Mountain lion seen on camera near hiking, biking path at Mission Trails Park
By Tessa Balc • Times of San Diego
Cameras monitored by Point Loma Nazarene University student researchers picked up the rare image last week, prompting the city to alert the community.
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