Alternate Side Street Parking

The city of Madison enforces alternate side parking on city streets from Nov. 15 through March 15, regardless of weather conditions. See Madison’s winter parking guidelines.

From 1-7 AM each day, you must park on the even side of the street on even-numbered days, and the odd side of the street on odd-numbered days. The numbering goes by the date after midnight, so if the evening before is odd, you park on the even side, because at 1 am it will be an even numbered day, and vice versa.

Neighborhood Parking

You may not park on the auto-courts or cul-de-sacs except in the designated parking spaces in the islands of the cul-de-sacs. You must park your vehicles, including guests’ vehicles, on your private drive or in the street. (See a car parked inappropriately? Here is a flyer you can print off and leave on the car windshield.)

The auto courts and cul-de-sacs are fire lanes. They need to be kept clear of parked cars so fire trucks and ambulances can access people’s homes. If parked cars hinder the access for these large vehicles, people’s lives could be endangered in an emergency. If you block a fire lane with your car and hinder the access of an emergency vehicle, you can be fined.

We have had problems with people using the common parking areas for the long-term storage of unused vehicles. Those areas are there to provide additional guest parking, and using them for permanent storage of unused vehicles is an abuse of a common good. If you have a vehicle you do not use, please store it in your garage and park your daily use vehicle in your driveway, or pay to have the unused vehicle stored by one of the many automobile storage companies that are listed in the Yellow Pages under Automobile Storage. While your neighbors may be too polite to complain directly to you, they do notice, and they do complain to us.