Why aren’t drivers getting ticketed for parking on LA sidewalks?

For over five years, parking enforcement has not cited people parking on so-called parkways—the public spaces between sidewalks and curbs, usually occupied by a patch of grass, some edible plants, or light landscaping, says the Los Angeles Times.

The Times says the Los Angeles City Council plans to decide on a policy for parkway parking and that enforcement will eventually ramp up. But it also says the council has postponed hearings on the matter twice, and that new hearings haven’t been scheduled yet.

Enforcement was suspended in 2011, says the Times, after backlash from residents who were cited for parking in aprons, the dip in the curb that connects driveways to streets. The idea was that by stopping enforcement on these spaces, city officials could have some time to create new policies about which of these spaces people could and could not park on.

It didn’t take long for drivers looking for parking in some of the city’s most dense neighborhoods, like Koreatown, East Hollywood, and Westlake, to figure out that they could get away with parking their cars in the grassy rectangles.

But over time, cars hopping the curb has taken its toll. Angry residents say the cars are destroying the grass and chipping away at the curbs.

Some fed-up locals have taken a DIY approach to combatting parking in the public spaces by installing more landscaping or even putting bollards in the ground, as documented by Streetsblog earlier this month.

Once a new policy is announced, city officials say that traffic enforcement officers will likely spend a while educating drivers about the policy change before they start doling out tickets.

• L.A. might start citing motorists against for parking on city parkways [LAT]
• Eyes on the Street: Posts Against Cars Parking on Koreatown Sidewalks [Streetsblog LA]