By Elisabeth Bont

Community News Editor

Parking in neighborhoods off campus can often be a chore, and come November, it could get a lot harder.

Starting Nov. 1, residents in certain city neighborhoods will again be asked to park on only one side of the street, and that side will change every night.

Seasonal parking regulations, sometimes called ``odd/even parking,'' have been on the books for years to help keep snow off Grand Rapids' narrow streets.

Older neighborhoods often ``don't have an abundance of off-street parking,'' said Todd Tofferi, administrative assistant for the Grand Rapids Streets and Sanitation Department.

Although motorists can navigate these crowded streets, ``the plows are not nimble enough to get in between the cars,'' and miss large areas of the street, he said.

To make sure as much snow can be removed as possible, the city has historically posted signs in some neighborhoods instructing motorists to park on only one side of the street at a time from November to April.

``On an odd date, you park on the odd side of the street (the side with odd house numbers); on an even date, you park on the even side of the street (the side with even house numbers),'' Tofferi said. ``This lasts from seven at night to seven in the morning.''

In previous years, the switch over from one side of the street to the other happened in the middle of the night, and residents who parked in the evening had to plan for the next day's date.

Unfortunately, this system was confusing for residents, police, and city workers, said Tofferi.

Under a new ordinance passed this week, however, a new parking day begins each morning at seven, as opposed to 2 a.m., so residents can park their cars after work and leave them until they leave the next morning.

The 7 a.m. switch time makes sense because it corresponds with when students and first-shift workers leave their houses and when third-shift employees return home, Tofferi said.

Although the system may seem overly complicated and unnecessary to some, heavy snowfalls, like those during last December, can virtually close narrow streets that are difficult to plow.

``It just keeps piling up, and these streets turn into two-tracks,'' said Tofferi. Besides making travel difficult for residents, snow-choked streets also slow down fire, police, recycling and sanitation vehicles, he said.

When all cars park on the same side, on the other hand, ``we can make a clean sweep down that side, and in the next day or two, we can come by and get the other side of the street,'' Tofferi said.

Calvin senior Chris Verkaik, who lives in a neighborhood with seasonal parking, does not believe the regulations are well enforced.

``Most nights you wouldn't get ticketed, so people wouldn't bother parking on the right side,'' he said about his experinece last winter. ``At one point, somebody just came by and ticketed everybody on one side.''

Verkaik, who received one of the tickets, nevertheless believes the regulations are important.

Last winter ``the road never got cleared, and it became impossible to go down,'' he said. ``If the plow can't get through the street, that hurts everybody.''

To make sure residents are aware of the new regulations, the city will recognize a grace period during the month of November, leaving reminders on car windows instead of tickets.

Starting in December, however, police will ticket--and occasionally even tow--offending vehicles, said Tofferi.

Eight hundred cars were impounded during last December alone, he said.

According to City Treasurer Al Mooney, tickets for violating seasonal parking restrictions are $10.

``We had 7,051 `odd/even parking' violations since January 1, 2001,'' totaling $102,567, he said.

One of those violations was by Calvin senior Scott Robertson, who received a ticket on a November day when there was almost no snow on the ground and the plows didn't run.

``I understand you need some system of removing snow,'' said Robertson, one of Verkaik's housemates, ``but if it's obvious that there's no snow that needs to be removed, only parking on one side doesn't make any sense.''

According to Tofferi, however, there's more to seasonal parking than snow removal.

``Even though it's not snowing yet, this is the time of year we have street sweepers out in force'' to remove leaves and debris, he said. ``We're trying to get things in the road cleaned up right now.''

In fact, the Streets and Sanitation Department encourages residents to park off the street as much as possible, regardless of the season, to keep roadways clear for emergency vehicles.

Most areas of Grand Rapids with seasonal parking are near the center of the city--north of Burton Ave., south of Leonard St., east of I-196, and west of East Grand Rapids, Tofferi said.

East Grand Rapids does not have seasonal parking restrictions.