KHOU-11 reminds us that the city’s new truck zone ordinance went into effect Tuesday:
“There’s a truck here, no permit, nothing. This is a commercial zone. He got a $300 ticket,” says Wilford Martinez with the Houston Municipal Courts.
That’s right $250 or $300 are the new fines for illegally parking in Houston’s new commercial zones.
Now, after weeks of warning, the city government has gone on the prowl for truck zone scofflaws.
“What we were finding was that a lot of individuals were parking in truck zones,” says Barbara Sudhoff of Houston Municipal Courts, “and then the commercial vehicles had no place to park.”
These new, red-topped parking meters indicate that a parking space is actually a loading zone. They’re expensive: $5 an hour. And not just anybody can park here. These meters are for commercial vehicles only.
So to park there, you need to drive either a vehicle with a business logo or a vehicle with one of the new permits that cost anywhere from $5 to $1,200.
[snip]
Skeptical delivery truck drivers think this isn’t about parking, they think it’s about money.
“Money for the city. I mean, why else? Why would we have to pay to park in a truck zone when all the time before we never did have to pay to park in a truck zone?” says Baker.
Whatever the reason, there’s no more free parking in downtown’s truck zones.
There’s no more free anything in Houston, it seems.
UPDATE: It appears that the city wasn’t quite ready for the new truck zone ordinance:
Enforcement of downtown’s new commercial vehicle loading rules began Tuesday after a couple months of delays, but a Chronicle survey found incorrect signs, missing meters and other confusion across numerous blocks.
[snip]
A reporter surveyed loading zones on several blocks Tuesday. Among the findings:
–Old “truck zone” signs remain at Milam and Walker and other locations. These signs were supposed to have been removed and replaced with new “commercial loading zone” signs that indicate a permit or meter payment is required.
–On McKinney between Travis and Main, there are conflicting signs. One indicates a loading zone but another states two-hour general parking is allowed. There is only one red meter to cover four or more spaces (most meters handle two spaces only).
–The wrong hours are posted on signs on Capitol between Fannin and San Jacinto, and at other locations. Those signs state the zones are in effect from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday. However, the rules are really in place only from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
City officials pledged to fix the numerous errors.
“If some of the old signs need to be changed, we will certainly do that,” said Frank Michel, spokesman for Mayor Bill White. “If there are some that are incorrectly labeled, then we have to get them corrected.”
Barbara Sudhoff, Municipal Courts clerk, said that if a person is erroneously ticketed because the signage at a site was in conflict with the ordinance, the citation would be dismissed.
I’m sure the burden of proof will be on the truck driver.
