Salt Lakers can soon say goodbye to parking ass-backward on 200 South.
Small Lake City
By Bill Frost @bill_frost
I'm nowhere near the two-wheel evangelist that City Weekly editor Benjamin "Cars Will Not Replace Us" Wood is, but I do enjoy the occasional downtown biking excursion. Back when I formally worked at the paper, I'd pedal to the old Main Street office during those rare intervals between frozen winter hellscape and scorching summer hellscape.
Salt Lake City tourism motto: "We Have Indoor Stuff, Too."
While I'm used to the playful back-and-forth between cyclists and the SLC motorists who are actively out to kill us—check out Death Race 2000 on Prime Video, it's a hoot—I'm all for any street improvements that will benefit bikers. But, not every "safety" initiative is a smart idea, and one of Salt Lake City's most un-smartest concepts is coming to an end in 2023: The back-in-angle parking on 200 South.
Back-in-angle parking—also known as reverse-angle parking, reverse-diagonal parking, or reverse-echelon parking in Britain (so posh)—was established in 2006 on the section of 200 South between 400 West and West Temple. From the timing, I'm guessing this was the idea of the president, CFO and PR lead of the Rocky Anderson Fan Club: then-mayor Rocky Anderson.
(It just sounds like something Anderson would do, like run for a belated third term with the campaign tagline, "Rocky III," named after the worst and least-necessary movie of the Sly Stallone franchise.)
The reverse-parking idea—where the 45-degree street stripes are inverted, compelling you to back into the slot—is theoretically safer for cyclists and pedestrians. Maybe it is elsewhere, but in a state where turn signals are optional ("My vehicular direction is a covenant between me and Heavenly Father") and roundabouts may as well be alien crop circles—not so much.
Downtown drivers have been coming to a dead stop on 200 South and ass-backwarding into a reverse-parking slot for 17 years now. Did the practice increase drivers' visual awareness of cyclists and prevent street mishaps? Likely a few. Perhaps Rocky III will include a component in his mayoral campaign called "Here's All the Lives I Saved When I Wasn't Even in Office—You're Welcome, Salt Lake."
As Salt Lake City Division of Transportation's Kyle Cook told Fox 13 News, 200 South's configuration has "reached the end of its useful life." This is a strikingly progressive statement for Utah, considering that we usually hold onto everything long past its natural expiration date: Naming sports teams after Native American tribes; lawns in a desert; Willard Mitt Romney; etc.
According to city plans, 200 South sans back-in parking is going to be far more friendly to cyclists, pedestrians, public transportation and shade trees (remember, "summer hellscape"). You'll see me there on my bike—but not if I see you first. CW
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