If you happen to live in North Portland, you don't need to worry about tow trucks, we still haven't had any leaf pick up service this year.

The city is worse because THEY make the rules.

The tow truck companies are only pilot fish following the main sharks. I almost don't blame them for taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the city, because that's their whole business. I said "almost," because they're also fighting to make sure that these salad days continue. (We had the same thing in Dallas for quite a long time, where tow truck companies spent a lot of campaign money on city council critters to make sure that our ordinances on "No Parking" signs remained in the 1800s. Until the late Nineties, for instance, it was perfectly legal to put a "No Parking: Violators Will Be Towed" sign as much as 40 feet off the ground and then tow everyone who tried to park in that space. It was only when the state attorney general got involved that parking in downtown Dallas stopped being a game of Russian roulette.)

It's a toss-up. They're both equally complict.

I believe that is 'equity'. Yes, they are at equity.

Pity Oregon doesn't seem to really have an Attorney General...

Grumpy, We do have a excellent Attorney General, he just went into retirement the day after he was sworn in.

Respectfully, Jack, I have to disagree with your assessment of this issue. I do not live in a leaf district, but it is my understanding that residents are given ample warning to get their vehicles off the street before the sweepers go through. Those vehicles left on the street are logically deemed "abandoned" and subject to ticket and tow. A career police officer I spoke to several months ago, told me that there were at one time approximately 4,000 stored vehicles on Portland's streets, a number that is unlikely to have declined much given the current restrictions on ticketing & towing. That's 4,000 vehicles taking up spaces that could be used for legitimate parking, and 4,000 vehicles that are creating potential traffic hazards. The shame of it is that it is only in the leaf districts that these vehicles are given any attention; in non-leaf districts, those vehicles that are stored-but-registered can sit for 2 years (the entire registration period) without getting a ticket or tow. In fact, there are several of these vehicles on block as I write. One, in particular, is unlikely to move until mid-2013, which is when the registration expires.

Like others who write here, I think the leaf program itself may be unconstitutional, but if one of the residual effects of the program is getting stored vehicles off the streets of Portland, those neighborhoods in the program should consider themselves lucky. My neighborhood is entirely without that service.

Patsy, if the city is worried about cars stored on the street, they should stop permitting apartment buildings with no parking.

You can actually call the city on abandoned cars if you observe them there for a set time.Can't remember what it is, two weeks or something. They come by and put a notice on the window and give the owner a day or two to move it, then they tow it. Though, this may be one program that was cut due to budget issues a couple of years ago.

Snards, I believe many years ago residents could call in any stored vehicle for ticketing and/or towing. But not anymore. Now, a vehicle must be unregistered and/or appear inoperable in order to get any attention from the city. I was told years ago by someone in Transportation that the streetcar ate the money for the program you describe.

Yeah, I called them a few years ago, but I also heard that that program was on the chopping block. It's a real shame. Seems like a program that could recoup it's own cost pretty well, but maybe too many of the towed cars went unclaimed.

First the Adams fantasy express acts to reduce or eliminate off-street parking and off-street parking requirements for new development. More vehicles end up parked on the street so more of them get towed. Anybody else see the prejudicial bias here. It is time to turn over a new leaf.

I believe for Portland technically no vehicle can be left unmoved on the street for 24 hrs, according to the Nuisance Bureau and Police. Our neighborhood has used this to help mitigate problems by those using our streets to park business vehicles in our residential neighborhood.

Lee, it's good to know the 24-hour vehicle parking code is being enforced in your neighborhood for business vehicles. I assume you mean vehicles with commercial license plates. Sadly, you could not achieve the same results with non-commercial vehicles.