Tel Aviv is a young city, established only in 1909, (younger than my daughter’s Toronto house!), on sand dunes north of Jaffa. It was meant from the beginning to be a modern city, with sewage and running water, and with plans to create an orderly grid structure. A city for the future!
Well the grid did not really happen, as Mike and I have often discovered as we set out in one direction, say west, and find the street has sneakily wound around and we are facing north, or south.
And for all the planning, the notion that people might acquire cars, did not appear to cross anyone’s mind.
As a consequence, the majority of apartment buildings, which line every street in Tel Aviv, have no parking at all, and the residents are obliged to park on the street. Since these buildings are generally four-five stories, with anywhere from 8-12 units within, and space in front (if any) for maybe 3 cars…you can see where the supply/demand equation for parking can quickly get out of hand. Most streets are one way, so as to allow parking on both sides.
And it is not unusual to see cars parked in creative ways, at right angles between two parallel parked cars, for example.
Sometimes they are on the sidewalk Actually…often they are on the sidewalk. Sidewalk parking is something I encounter every day as I walk along King George. This creates short bottlenecks where hapless pedestrians (like me) have even less room to compete with the ever aggressive bicycles and scooters that dominate the sidewalks. I can’t imagine that parking this way is legal, but clearly whatever penalty might be attached to such an action, it pales in comparison with what a bus driver might do if a driver dared to pull over and block his lane.
There is little point driving within the city, but not so much because of traffic. It is because having actually secured a street parking spot within walking distance of home, it is very risky to get in the car and drive anywhere in town; i) because there will be no parking at the destination, and ii) because when you come back your spot will undoubtedly be gone. And good luck finding a new one!
The search for parking can provide plenty of opportunity for drama, as cars jockey for position and prepare to pounce on an empty spot (think Yorkdale on the weekend). A driver with a passenger is at an advantage in this game. Once a spot is identified, the passenger is dispatched to stand in the spot and fight off the competition, while the driver takes the necessary circuitous route through the one-way side streets to get there. The passenger then provides an extra pair of eyes to ensure that there is at least one centimetre left between the newly parked car and both its neighbours. How drivers manage to squeeze into some of these spots, and then get out again, is a mystery to me.
