Here is a first person account of a nasty outrage at the National Park Service's Indiana Dunes Central Beach. This incident begs for an in-dept investigation of the park service there, its friendly relationship with the tow truck operators, and the US Attorney's office in Hammond, Indiana that threatened jail time over a parking ticket,! (This is why otherwise sensible people hate the government.)
The author, Ginger Wheeler of Glen Ellyn, Il. is a free lance writer who runs her own sales and marketing business.
Midwestern beach lovers beware: There's a parking nightmare awaiting you at the National Park Service's Indiana Dunes Central Beach near Michigan City, Indiana.
The scene I witnessed on a hot Sunday afternoon in July was enough to make you wish for winter. With temperatures in the high 90s, hundreds of people showed up that day to enjoy the water, the sun, and the beach: Problem is not the beach space, it's the parking. The parking lot at this beach has enough space for about 70 cars.
The Indiana Dunes National Park Service (very limited) website tells you this:
Q. Can I call to find out if the campground or beaches are full?
A. Yes. As the campground fills and the beach parking areas are reported full both the parks dispatch (communication center) and visitor center are notified. Call 219-926-7561 for the most recent report.
If you make the 90-minute trek from Chicago to this beach, you're just going to have to take your chances with the parking. Word to the wise: There is NO WHERE to park any where NEAR this beach if the parking lot is full.
My family has traveled to this beach once every summer for the past ten years to get our Indiana Dunes fix. In 2008, we arrived and found the lot full. A ranger was standing near the lot warning the cars not to park on the narrow lane that leads to this lot from Rte. 12: he advised us that tow trucks would be at the ready. So, I dropped off the kids and the beach gear and drove down to Rte. 12 and paid a resident $20 to let me park in his driveway. Then I HIKED back to the beach (about a half hour walk) - it was a long, hot walk on a narrow street with no sidewalks and lots of traffic (more people heading down to find the lot full and turning around to come back the same way!).
In 2009, we decided to leave VERY EARLY to avoid the parking problem. I arrived and found the lot was not full, but filling quickly. I drive a compact car, so I tucked my car into what I thought was a convenient small spot in the lot to allow those big SUVs more room in the parking spaces further down. We had a nice time at the beach.
But about 3pm, when the kids were done, we packed it up and walked back to the lot (in itself not an easy hike!) and after coming down the hill from the beach found a scene of chaos: Cars parked up and down the lane on both sides were being towed off lickety-split by about six tow trucks, creating a traffic hazard to rival anything I've ever seen. There were people with strollers, coolers, grandparents- lugging all their beach gear down the hill to find their car.... GONE! Tow trucks were blocking the roads, toddlers roaming among vehicles - some people were driving out of the parking lot, only to be blocked by tow trucks. People screaming at the rangers, people on cell phones, people hiking down the lane (dodging all this traffic) trying to figure out who on earth had their car and how would they find it (I'm sure a cab ride was going to be expensive and take a long time). Everyone was hot, sticky, tired, and cranky: It was ugly.
I felt so sorry for these people: you come to the beach on the hottest day of the summer, and then bang, your car is towed off (Thanks for visiting the Indiana Dune National Lake Shore! Come back soon and think about helping to fund our mission).
Well I felt relieved that I had found a space in the lot. I was happy we had planned ahead and come very, very early so that we could get a spot. I felt glad that I didn't hog another parking spot, so that one more person could enjoy the beach, having tucked my car into a narrow edge space.
But, lo and behold, I had a ticket on my car. My first thought was that someone had stuck THEIR ticket on MY car hoping that I might just pay the $75 ticket. But on closer examination, the ticket said it was issued because I had "One wheel on the grass."
Now I can understand why the tickets would be issued to those cars parked along the lane: the street is clearly marked no parking and warning signs are posted about the towing. It stinks that the rangers weren't there that day to warn cars away from the lane (you'd think with 180 employees to care for that 15,000 acres of national park land, SOMEONE could have been standing by on the hottest Sunday of the summer to warn people, but no). But to ticket a car parked in a parking lot sounds a bit like just "Trying to rake it in," to me.
I wondered, who has the contract to tow all these cars? Where are the cars being taken? Why doesn't the National Park Service offer some type of parking and shuttle service on the hottest day of the summer so more people could enjoy "our" national lake shore? Why are they being so punitive and mean? What possible good can be served by towing all those cars off and ticketing people who come once a year to enjoy this park? You'd think they could anticipate that on the hottest day of the summer on a weekend, more people would be heading to the beach. With 180 employees, you'd think they'd have some brain power to figure that out. Plus, they get from October 15 to May 15 to rest since the parking lot and this beach is CLOSED ALL WINTER.
Well I decided to go to court and fight this ticket. I felt that a reasonable person - a judge - would see the evidence and decide that where I had parked was in fact OK (Also about 10 feet to the left of my car was a sign that read "No Parking" and pointed AWAY from where I was parked. But where I had parked looked clear to me.).
So in October I headed to Hammond Indiana to federal court (it was me against the People of the United States). I arrived at 8:30am, was cleared through the scanner although my coffee was taken away from me, and was ushered into a room with a prosecutor, a park ranger, and some other person. The prosecutor told me that if the judge got my case they could fine me $5000 and put me in jail for six months. He assured me he wasn't seeking jail time, but just to make sure I had heard him, he repeated the possibility that jail time could be offered by the judge.
I argued that I thought my parking space was fine: I showed them the pictures. I pointed out the no parking sign TEN FEET AWAY FROM MY CAR. But the ranger said, "We can't put signs up everywhere or it wouldn't be a park." I told them about the chaos that day - I said I was horrified at the way the park rangers had towed off all those cars and left all those people stranded there. I told them they should be ashamed of themselves for treating people WHO JUST WANT TO HANG OUT AT A BEACH ON A HOT DAY like that.
The prosecutor advised me that if I wanted to proceed with the case, risk a $5000 fine and jail time (although he said again he wasn't seeking that), then I had to come back in December to see the judge. Huh? I thought this WAS court: I didn't know that I was going to an interrogation and a threat session with three intimidating federal officials in a tiny room in hugh granite federal facility.
I admit it, I caved: I paid the ticket and told them I would NEVER go back to the national lakeshore again. I vowed I would never give another DIME to the National Park Service since they had just FORCED me to pay $75 for legally parking in a free parking lot.
I just want this article to be a warning to others: Skip the Indiana Dunes national lakeshore: Go to Michigan - Go to Oak Street Beach - Go to Florida! If you head to Indiana, even on the hottest day of the year, you'll feel the freezing effect of law enforcement run amok and probably a little graft and corruption thrown in for good measure (tow truck contracts anyone?).
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