Men's parking space

Men's parking space is an antonym to women's parking space.

Normally mentioned only in satire, in July 2012 two men's parking spaces were opened in Triberg in the Black Forest of Germany. Planned as a practical joke presenting a specific challenge to unskilled drivers, they produced worldwide media interest in the combination of humour to lampoon the idea of political correctness and of successful city marketing.

Triberg, a small city of five thousand inhabitants, has an extremely steep topography. It has waterfalls. In 2010, Triberg was reportedly visited by about 250,000 tourists per year, most of whom came to see the waterfalls on a day-tour basis. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans, who had been frequent visitors, became less likely to visit. That and the decline of the local watchmaking industry have caused problems for Triberg's economy.

In 2007 Max-Dieter Mack presented preliminary plans for a €90 million Amusement park, Erlebniswelt Triberg, on a former industrial site in the municipality. Mack, an architect, is a Triberg native and relative of leisure park mogul Roland Mack. The parking garage at Kreuzstraße is the only planned building constructed so far. Mack was not commissioned for this. Instead of the theme park, a smaller shopping mall and some comparably humble attractions are now on schedule. The back of the parking garage is angled to follow the course of the River Gutach. Therefore, two parking bays, one on each level, have a peculiar shape and can be reached only by a complicated parking maneuver. Mayor Strobel and the architects, Judith Haas and Mattias Huismanns, deliberated about excluding those two bays from the garage of 220 bays, which was built for €2 million.

Strobel decided to declare them men's parking spaces. 12 women's stalls (standard shape, but closer to the entrance) had to be declared according to German law, in any event. Unlike spots reserved for disabled persons, where misuse is fined according to StVO (German traffic rules), neither gender is actually prohibited from parking in any of the dedicated spots. There could be such a prohibition if StVO were formally abolished in favor of local regulations, but this is not the case in Triberg. In the case of the women's space, the dedication is an appeal to manners and friendliness, and in case of the male signs, a warning to unskilled drivers.

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Wikipedia