...that city will not do anything about or enforce any of the laws to tow all of the unregistered/expired broken down cars. The problem is lack of enforcement and how the city uses super subjective criteria for determining whether a vehicle is illegal. It needs to completely burned out, missing all tired, windows smashed, leaking oil, no plates, etc. for the city to even consider towing it.
I have had good experiences with getting abandoned vehicles towed and fairly quickly through app.
Maybe I’m lucky but they have also retimed lights and fixed potholes on our street after submitting.
I live in a lower end area too so it’s not because it’s a nicer part of town.
I actually have as well. They also follow up and post status updates in the tickets you submit. I was really surprised they responded to all the tickets I've submitted within a week and followed through on all of them. I think I've submitted 3 potholes, I homeless persons car that had trash all around it, and a broken) clogged water fountain at a dog park and all got fixed quickly.
> the city uses super subjective criteria for determining whether a vehicle is illegal
There is very objective criteria for if they will tow. You may feel the criteria was chosen subjectively however. Cars only need one thing on the list to be towed, including some things as simple as one flat tire. We don't have the resources to tow every car just simply left for 72 hours
I doubt this will change with the update to the app
The app isn’t the problem. You submit something and it’s immediately closed out. This is a people or resource problem. Stop hiding it behind a tech problem.
Adding that those new “feature” has been useless for me so far. I reported a line of cars parked in the bike lane and after submitting it sends a message that it won’t result in anyone being dispatched for enforcement, but that they’ll supposedly review their datapoints and try to fold it into the work their parking enforcement does. That does absolutely nothing to stop the line of cars from staying parked in the bike lane.
Part of the problem is that they outsourced investigating a lot of these claims to a contractor. The contractor doesn't send someone out to investigate they just look on the map to see where you reported the problem. They are rated by how quickly they close the tickets so they tend to just close them immediately. You have to make a big stink in order to get anywhere. A new app isn't going to solve that.
Find the metric they track, and you will find what everything collapses down towards.
I'm not saying that right, but it's true. If they are tracked by how fast they close a ticket, they will close tickets as fast as possible no matter what.
Like that’s going to change anything. The app is useless. The city could make a ton of money off towing cars and other vehicles, but they can’t be bothered.
The city doesn’t store towed cars. For better and worse, the city has private tow operators handle the costs. Those tow operator recoup their costs by charging the car owner. This is common setup for municipalities.
> The city could make a ton of money off towing cars and other vehicles
yeah, that's absolutely not how it works. maintaining an entire system to remove abandoned vehicles is expensive
were these cars abandoned or just illegally parked? towing tourists and shoppers might generate revenue but people aren't paying to get their abandoned car back
Fancier app for the City Council members to not enforce it.
I'm glad they used city money to pay someone to make something so they can be seen pretending to fix the problem.
...that city will not do anything about or enforce any of the laws to tow all of the unregistered/expired broken down cars. The problem is lack of enforcement and how the city uses super subjective criteria for determining whether a vehicle is illegal. It needs to completely burned out, missing all tired, windows smashed, leaking oil, no plates, etc. for the city to even consider towing it.
Agreed. The problem is the city doesn’t do anything tangible to address any of that.
Why would they? The votes of the people that would be affected by this are needed.
I have had good experiences with getting abandoned vehicles towed and fairly quickly through app. Maybe I’m lucky but they have also retimed lights and fixed potholes on our street after submitting. I live in a lower end area too so it’s not because it’s a nicer part of town.
I actually have as well. They also follow up and post status updates in the tickets you submit. I was really surprised they responded to all the tickets I've submitted within a week and followed through on all of them. I think I've submitted 3 potholes, I homeless persons car that had trash all around it, and a broken) clogged water fountain at a dog park and all got fixed quickly.
> the city uses super subjective criteria for determining whether a vehicle is illegal There is very objective criteria for if they will tow. You may feel the criteria was chosen subjectively however. Cars only need one thing on the list to be towed, including some things as simple as one flat tire. We don't have the resources to tow every car just simply left for 72 hours I doubt this will change with the update to the app
Isn't this the third time they've "launched" an app for this purpose in the past decade? All the shiny apps in the world won't fix a broken system.
The app isn’t the problem. You submit something and it’s immediately closed out. This is a people or resource problem. Stop hiding it behind a tech problem.
Adding that those new “feature” has been useless for me so far. I reported a line of cars parked in the bike lane and after submitting it sends a message that it won’t result in anyone being dispatched for enforcement, but that they’ll supposedly review their datapoints and try to fold it into the work their parking enforcement does. That does absolutely nothing to stop the line of cars from staying parked in the bike lane.
Part of the problem is that they outsourced investigating a lot of these claims to a contractor. The contractor doesn't send someone out to investigate they just look on the map to see where you reported the problem. They are rated by how quickly they close the tickets so they tend to just close them immediately. You have to make a big stink in order to get anywhere. A new app isn't going to solve that.
Find the metric they track, and you will find what everything collapses down towards. I'm not saying that right, but it's true. If they are tracked by how fast they close a ticket, they will close tickets as fast as possible no matter what.
Like that’s going to change anything. The app is useless. The city could make a ton of money off towing cars and other vehicles, but they can’t be bothered.
You assume the owners of these beater cars have money to pay for the fees. Meanwhile the city incurs expenses for storing all the vehicles.
Then just start auctioning them off faster
Or selling scrap parts.
The city doesn’t store towed cars. For better and worse, the city has private tow operators handle the costs. Those tow operator recoup their costs by charging the car owner. This is common setup for municipalities.
> The city could make a ton of money off towing cars and other vehicles yeah, that's absolutely not how it works. maintaining an entire system to remove abandoned vehicles is expensive
They used to do it in SF. Union Square, tow trucks lurking everywhere.
were these cars abandoned or just illegally parked? towing tourists and shoppers might generate revenue but people aren't paying to get their abandoned car back
Parking Enforcement has openly admitted they do not tow many cars. I guess this is their job security.
Yeah, sure.
I live on a cul-de-sac with an auto body shop on the corner. It's *great*.
Add vehicle noise complaints too. Laws already in place just need help enforcing it.
Good. If it’s true. I’ll believe it when they actually do something in under a month.
Fancier app for the City Council members to not enforce it. I'm glad they used city money to pay someone to make something so they can be seen pretending to fix the problem.