{"id":554824,"date":"2026-01-30T21:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/554824\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T21:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:56:13","slug":"how-philly-residents-feel-about-saving-parking-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/554824\/","title":{"rendered":"How Philly residents feel about saving parking spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you worked hard to shovel a parking spot in Philly or to find one that wasn\u2019t entombed in snow and ice, are you entitled to it? That\u2019s the eternal question of the \u201cSavesies\u201d debate<\/a> \u2014 ie, the practice of putting an object like a chair or cone in a spot to save it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The debate has never been hotter \u2014 actually colder \u2014 than right now in South Philly.\u00a0 It\u2019s like the wild, wild west \u2014 a frozen frontier where many streets still aren\u2019t plowed.<\/a> Snow banks, some piled multiple feet in the air, surround cars. There has never been enough parking there. Now there\u2019s a lot less, and the snow and ice will almost certainly linger into next week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Billy Penn spoke with residents about the current situation, and how it continues to affect the city\u2019s parking landscape.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mixed feelings\u00a0<\/p>\n

Parking in South Philly was already hard to come by before Sunday\u2019s snow, said Joe Moore, an incident manager living in Point Breeze. While shoveling out his car, he expressed concern over finding another spot once he moves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m gonna have to drive around for an hour to try to find a spot,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Moore worked to dig up his car, he said he\u2019s not a fan of the \u201csavesies\u201d concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna move the car and then test our luck when we get back,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A resident uses a snowblower to clear the sidewalk in Philadelphia\u2019s Fishtown neighborhood on Jan. 25, 2026. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Some residents feel differently. Sudan McNair, a 20-year-old student, shoveled out a parking spot and put a cone out. He said he feels anyone who worked to clear a space is entitled to park in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to tell the people to stop taking other people\u2019s spots,\u201d he said. \u201cStop taking people\u2019s spots that they shoveled their way out of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although nobody moved McNair\u2019s cone, he said it\u2019s possible someone could try to take the spot in the future. In that case, he said, he would just \u201caccept the loss.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I come back and don\u2019t see the cone, it\u2019s like, I don\u2019t even know who did it,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you kind of have to give in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fights over parking spots can get violent. A brawl <\/a>over a cleared parking space Thursday afternoon in Kensington left one person in critical condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But others on social media<\/a> defend the \u201cSavesies\u201d concept and take a more lighthearted tone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peter Conlon, 35, a handyman and bartender, drove to the neighborhood from Delaware for a moving job. He came in the afternoon, and said the daytime parking scene was \u201cnot as bad as I thought it would be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When he sees a cone or a chair guarding an empty shoved space, Conlon tends to leave it be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t [move it], just because I\u2019m not very confrontational, so I don\u2019t want to deal with that headache,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d rather just, you know, circle the block a few more times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conlon believes, whether you like it or not, savesies are inevitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just kind of part of South Philly,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a real way to police it. It\u2019s just gonna always happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carolyn Williams, 63, lives in South Philly and feels those who worked to clear their spots deserve to keep them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel as though people that shovel their spaces out should be able to come back and park where they shovel their spaces out,\u201d she said. \u201c[I feel] that nobody else should be able to park in their spot, and then they have to go try to find somewhere else to park. It\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams also emphasized there is normally a lack of available spots for permit parking outside of snow storms \u2014 especially at night. She said this has led her daughter, who works late and comes home looking for a spot, to frequently park outside of her permitted zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe comes home at night, and there\u2019s nowhere for her to park, so she has to park three or four blocks down,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s a young lady out here walking by herself at night. You know how dangerous it is in Philadelphia all over, and anything can happen to her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Lawn chairs remain a popular spot-saving method. (Julia Binswanger\/\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

City response? Shrug<\/p>\n

The city has maintained the #NoSavesies stance, saying it is illegal<\/a> to block off spots with inanimate objects. In the past, the city<\/a> has made an effort to round up cones and objects that block off these spaces.<\/p>\n

As one redditor<\/a> noted, \u201cThe person who took your spot almost certainly had *their* spot taken by someone else. The circle of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some residents see both sides to the debate. Dylan Swindells, who lives in South Philly, said he can see the validity in blocking off a spot someone makes an effort to shovel out during a snowstorm. But, he said \u201cSavesies\u201d persists throughout the year, which can be frustrating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lawn chairs and the tires and stuff are very obnoxious,\u201d Swindells said. \u201c<\/strong>You don\u2019t own the street, and you don\u2019t own the spot outside your house. We all live in the same area, it should really just become first-come, first-serve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swindells\u2019 best friend, Louis Montanez, agrees. He said outside of the snowstorm, the problem persists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to outside of that, I know half his block is just blocked off by chairs and cones and basketball-like memorabilia,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Police Department and Streets Department did not respond to a request for comment at the time of the publication of this story.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you worked hard to shovel a parking spot in Philly or to find one that wasn\u2019t entombed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":554825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,28319,1322,1448,20034,2830,1311,242995,71178,194461,101681,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,313],"class_list":{"0":"post-554824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-blizzard","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-parking","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-savesies","16":"tag-snow","17":"tag-snow-storm","18":"tag-south-philly","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115986286998049222","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}