Court Opinion

ID: 3472231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 20:41:54.828149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:08:52.347875
License: Public Domain

I respectfully dissent. Designating the streets in which there shall be no parking of vehicles, etc., under penalties provided for by a general ordinance, is no more an exclusively legislative function than the locating of fire hydrants near which there shall be no parking under penalties similarly provided, or the laying out of lawn and flower beds not to be trampled on under like penalties, etc.
It is certainly a legislative function to provide for the keeping of public streets free from congestion or for facilitating the extinguishment of conflagrations or beautifying public places, and to pronounce penalties against those who obstruct the legislative purpose; but the arrangement of locationand details is a mere administrative function, just as it is a legislative function to provide for the regulation of congested traffic; but surely to the traffic officer may be left some discretion in directing the movement and location of vehicles, without specifying in the ordinance the number of minutes to be allowed for traffic going in this way and in that, and the precise spots in which they shall stop, stand, etc.
Traffic regulation is becoming a matter of supreme importance
in this age; and details need constant changing to keep up with the rapid growth of traffic. If these details must be written into the law, any attempt to regulate traffic may be given over at the start; for in the time it takes to pass an ordinance conditions may have already so changed as to make the ordinance no longer practicable; and what was best yesterday may be all wrong to-day, and good again to-morrow.
I therefore dissent. *Page 121