Extreme Contrarian friend BT writes: I support execution for people who violate the parking ban. Humanely, of course. Deputize the plow drivers so they can haul the outlaws out of their beds on the spot and shoot them in the back of the head, Chinese-style. ("This ain't no feather-duster I'm packing.") Many Halifax drivers are smarter than coyotes, so after half a dozen or so shootings, the streets will be clear. Real clear, if you get my drift. More moderate Contrarian reader JS has paid three tickets for his son's lack of access to parking at night—the plates are still in Dad's...

Contrarian reader Jim Guild writes: In Montreal, which gets a shitload of snow (to use a complex meteorological term), I believe they still allow parking on one half of most residential streets. On odd-numbered days, drivers can park on the side of the street where odd-numbered houses are located; on even-numbered days they can park on the other side. This means that local residents don't have to rent parking for the winter, out-of-towners can visit overnight, Victor Syperek's buddies can still be designated drivers for their drinking friends, and the snow ploughs can still make the roads passable. Reader Gary Campbell...

Halifax's unaccountable parking czar Ken Reashor used his arbitrary powers yesterday to end the Halifax peninsula parking ban 26 days earlier than expected. The ban held sway for 84 days, from December 14 through March 4. I can't find actual snowfall data for that period, but the table below (sources here and here) shows average snow conditions in Halifax (the only data available to officials when they impose the ban). So in an average year, the 84-days period from December 14 through March 4 would include about 16 days with snowfall and about 68 without. Why not target the 16 days when a...

Bruce Wark, writing from an HRM neighborhood where the ban on overnight parking is not enforced, critiques my critique of the ban: [Y]ou use "reasonable accommodation" as though you have proved it. It is as though you are saying that your assertion in the first paragraph is sufficient to support what you're saying in the second. The rules of logic say that he who asserts must prove. Furthermore, your assertion that "traffic tsar" Ken Reashor "evinces no interest in reasonable accommodation" is a neat, but logically unconvincing way of first, labelling Reashor as a Russian dictator, then glossing over necessary proof...

Dartmouth Cole Harbour MLA Andrew Younger has pulled off something remarkable: He has outflanked the most populist politician in the province on an issue of populism. Earlier this week, Younger challenged Transportation Minister Bill Estabrooks to use his ministerial powers to lift HRM's hated overnight winter parking ban, implemented last month by fiat of the city's unelected, unaccountable traffic tzar. The response from Estabrooks, normally one of the most adroit and citizen-connected politicans in Nova Scotia, sounded uncharacteristically  stuffy: I'm not going to interfere in the winter parking ban," he said. "I'm going to wait to see what the councillors advise me and...