Downtown Bend oversized vehicles being ticketed

Last August, NewsChannel 21 told you about a new city of Bend rule targeting over-length vehicles parked downtown. The rule would have ticketed vehicles longer than 19.5 feet. That exact rule didn’t go into effect, and now whether a ticket gets issued depends on how much traffic is impacted.

The rule isn’t about feet or inches, it’s about impact to street traffic, city Parking Demand Manager Drew Dietrich said Friday.

“It’s not the type of vehicle, it’s how it’s parked,” Dietrich said. “So whether it’s not pulled in all the way, has a trailer on the back, several bikes, (if it sticks) into the travel lane and a car has to maneuver around it, it creates an unsafe condition, and those are the reasons — we enforce for safety,” Dietrich said.

That said, some drivers have expressed frustration that the city hasn’t made it very clear what exactly the rule is, either with signs or on the city website. But parking attendants are required to take photos of over-length vehicles to prove that they were impacting traffic. The ticket for the violation is $50, and dozens have been issued since last year.

Some drivers, including recently ticketed Bend resident Scott Linden, are confused and frustrated.

“Last year, the city bureaucrats in charge of enforcing parking promised they would do a better job making the signage clear making the law clearer, making the rules crystal clear,” he said. “They haven’t done a thing, but they have started writing $50 tickets again.”

Linden said he’s not necessarily upset about the rule but about what he says is inconsistent implementation by the city.

“It’s a real simple fix: If they would put signs up and define the actual maximum length in a way everyone can understand, then everybody can follow the rules and they’re fair to everybody,” Linden said.

“Right now, it’s whatever the parking elves decide violates the law is what gets a ticket,” he said. “That didn’t get a ticket, that guy got a ticket, the guy down the street didn’t get a ticket, but the guy down the street in the Grateful Dead truck did.”

According to the city, very few tickets written have been for the over-length violation.

It’s the topic of our new KTVZ.COM Poll: Should oversized vehicles parked downtown that are partly into the travel lane get a ticket, be towed or neither? Find our poll halfway down the right side of our home page.