This is like when I got really in to punk rock and grew a mohawk and started wearing a jean jacket covered in band patches, to show off my individuality.
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so fucking hilly. why i no longer ride a bike.
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Related to parking chairs/Chicago dibs, how does Pittsburgh feel about the practice of bumping bumpers when parallel parking? It seems it’s widely tolerated in Chicago, as long as there are no scratches or traded paint.
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“Tolerated” is a funny way to spell “mandatory.” First time I bumped bumpers in the suburbs, I was flabbergasted by the horrified reaction.
Also, in Chicago we had a name for saved shoveled-out parking spots that was very not nice to our Eastern-European neighbors.
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I lived in Pixberg from '79 to '85. Wore out the brakes twice on my car from going up and down, up and down. Don’t even think about Banksville Road in the winter.
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Only in 6th gear and reverse.
When I was a kid, there was a particularly unreasonable blizzard that dumped a ton of snow. A fine local gentleman dug out the parking spot in front of his house, left briefly, and returned to find a car parked there. He went inside his house, came out with a shot gun, and blasted a few rounds into the empty car.
The police responded quickly because they were next door and this was their undercover car.
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Norm vs Law.
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You’ve got to be fucking kidding me that’s actually a law?
All of South Oakland is going to jail then.
Also this is probably the single stupidest law I have ever seen. Why?? It might be tasteless but how is it harmful to have a couch on your porch?
It’s only harmful if it’s on fire in the middle of the street and again that is a regular occurrence here
Depends on the neighborhood. In Oakland, where most of the colleges and universities are, bumpers are meant for bumpin’.
It was put on the books in 2009 after the Steelers last Super Bowl win.
Central Oakland. Common mistake, South Oakland is largely South of Boulevard of the Allies.
The general thought is that if it’s on your porch it’s that much easier to get it into the street and burn it (also you don’t care about it that much.) The law is really only enforced when there is the chance of a riot, like back in 2016 & 2017 when the Penguins won the cup. Then they send crews out to take couches off porches.
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“We understand that it can be really frustrating when you dig out a spot and someone takes it when you leave to get a gallon of milk,” he said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that the spot is just not yours.”
In that case, why isn’t the City clearing the snow off the streets?
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Not in San Diego.
I still can’t believe they waste money on a weather forecaster on the TV news there. Why bother? I can tell you what it’ll be on Pi Day this year: 71-72 degrees F and sunny. Also Flag Day. And Memorial Day. And Halloween.
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Parking by Braille, you mean? 
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Oh it gets cleared off the driving part of the street and pushed on top of your car.
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Unless Wikipedia is wrong, the Pittsburgh Left and the Jersey Left are different things.
Not sure if the PL is common; when I visited for a week ~20 years ago, did not see it happen, and I was aware of it and actively looking for it. Anyone from the area know?
The Jersey Left just seems to be a reasonable solution, but damn, I did a lot of U-turning until I figured the jughandle out.
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Neighborhood to neighborhood. Oakland and lawrenceville: ok. Shadyside or the burbs: no way. The one that gets you is the Strip, again, because it feels like it should be OK to bump there but it absolutely isn’t. Probably because most of those parking are actually lunch-tourists from the burbs.
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After the Philly area blizzard in the '90s, the worst challenge was cutting through a thick ridge of ice that the snow plow left next to my car tires. I made a path that wasn’t wide enough, and the body of the car got stuck on it. At the time, I had a job in NJ and left for work around 5:00 AM. Luckily, another neighbor was heading out early and he helped me push my car the rest of the way onto the plowed part.
The aftermath of that storm was the only time I tried to use a parking chair, and it didn’t work. I got home after fighting the post-storm traffic, and someone else was parked in the spot in front of my house. 
After circling several blocks looking for a place to sit my car on top of snow piled up at the curb, I found one. The alternate spot was terrible (there were trolley tracks on that road, and cars too far from the curb could be hit by it). The snow and ice made it difficult to get out of the car and trudge back to the block where I lived. Wearing a skirt with a long coat made it even worse. Did I mention that I lived on a hill?
The icing on the cake was finally getting into bed after that drama, only to hear the car in front of my house start up and drive away. In that moment, I understood how using a space someone else cleared out could lead to violence.
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They are definitely different. That practice in Pittsburgh could get you killed in the eastern part of the state, although I have seen drivers on roads without a left turn arrow floor it to turn before cars moving straight have a chance to move. Most of us sit in the intersection and wait until the light turns yellow or red before making a left turn when there is no arrow and no break in oncoming traffic.
Another definition of the Jersey left is when drivers make a right turn into a side street, and then use that to make a left turn onto the main road. Jughandles are only found on major roads, so we have to improvise where we can! 
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Nowhere in Canada that I’m aware of, at least not where large snowfalls are normal. I’m curious to know what people do in snowy US cities like Buffalo, Syracuse or Cleveland, as opposed to the ones discussed in this thread – comparatively snowless places like Pittsburgh or Chicago.
If I want to hang onto a parking spot after a snowstorm, I stay parked in it until forced to move by snow-removal* operations or other parking restrictions. If I dig out and move before then, the spot is fair game.
Another factor: if you’re experienced with large snowfalls and sporting winter tires, digging out is not a big deal. I simply dig enough of the snowbank left by the plow for the front end of my car to fit through, remove all the snow from the car, and go. Parking in a similarly liberated spot is no challenge either. Fully clearing a parking spot would be almost as silly as trying to claim it with chairs.
*For the uninitiated, “snow removal” is not just plowing, but loading all the snow from the street and sidewalks into dump trucks and carting it away. As I understand it this is not widely done in the US because there are few large cities that get enough snow for it to be worthwhile to purchase all the necessary equipment.
