New parking spaces downtown may be a welcome sight but the trickier way of getting into them is confusing drivers. The city of Tallahassee tried to avoid the confusion when it introduced back-in angle parking last year, but stumped drivers are taking to social media to say they still don’t get it.
When the City of Tallahassee unveiled new back-in parking on Gaines Street, it gave Tallahasseans a video tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjE9sIj1ODE
Still, that hasn’t been enough. It’s one thing to back-end park. It’s another thing entirely when it’s at an angle. And some frustrated drivers have simply jumped the gird and parked nose-in. But that’s wrong, and warrants a parking ticket. The back-end spots have also debuted along Gadsden Street next to Cascades Park—but if those spots are empty, the drivers are using them as a right turn-lane: also wrong. So city spokeswoman Lizzy Kelly breaks it down:
“You turn on your blinker as you approach the space you want to use. Go just a little bit beyond that, put your car in reverse and back into the space.”
It sounds simple enough, but what if there’s traffic? Kelley says that’s a valid concern, and its up to other drivers to pay attention to the car in front of them:
“We’re advising motorists, if you’re near the back-in spaces, if the vehicle in front of you turns on its blinker, please slow down or stop where you are and allow that other vehicle to back in, just as you would if you were passing parallel spaces."
Kelley says there are studies that show back-in angle parking is actually safer for drivers and pedestrians. It’s easier for people to see what’s in front of them, when they’re facing that direction. And she says the back-end angles are here to stay. But if drivers are still confused, they can turn to the city’s DRVN 850 website for more tutorials.
