One-sided parking ban in St. Paul planned until April 15

People start clearing snow from streets and sidewalks
Residents of West St. Paul start clearing wet, heavy snow on Monday.
Andrew Krueger | MPR News

With another winter storm on the way, the city of St. Paul is limiting street parking.

Starting at 8 a.m. Friday, parking is prohibited on even-numbered sides of residential streets until April 15. In St. Paul, the even-numbered side of the street is typically the south or east side of the street.

The parking ban does not apply to arterial routes.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said the restrictions are necessary to ensure accessibility for emergency vehicles.

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“The goal of this is to make sure that we can get fire trucks to your house, to make sure that we can get ambulances to your business if we need to do that, in recognition of this historic winter season that we've had,” Carter said.

The city will ticket and tow vehicles in violation of the parking ban.

“We know that on-street parking is critical to many residents, and we’ve done everything we can to keep streets as wide as possible this winter,” said Public Works Director Sean Kershaw in a statement. “Right now, we can’t get our larger plow trucks down some residential streets. The parking ban enables our crews to be more responsive with whatever winter weather comes in the remaining season.”

City officials say the end date of the parking ban could come sooner if the weather warms up before then.

In January, Minneapolis imposed winter parking rules that prohibit parking on the even-numbered side of streets that are not snow emergency routes.