The award for craziest street parking scene goes to …

There are many strong competitors for the title of craziest neighborhood parking situation on Oahu.

Start a story like that and the folks in Lanikai sit up in their chairs and go, “Oh, don’t even!” as they reach for cellphone pictures of the last three-day weekend.

Neighbors in some Waipahu cul-de-sacs go through elaborate car choreography every day to make sure Johnny can leave on time from work, Linda has a place to park when she gets home after her shift, and the Handi-Van driver can get close to the house to pick up Grandma.

And then there’s lovely, winding Wilhelmina Rise, where streetside parking requires precision steering, reliable brakes, and chocks on the wheels. So many of those houses are multi-family rentals with just a two-car garage, and every eligible driver over the age of 16 has their own set of wheels (and their own set of chocks.)

But consider the stretch of Lusitana Street that runs from School Street near the top of Queen Emma and up toward Pauoa.

That street has its own parking culture and customs. You guys, that parking sitch is nuts, K?

There are two de facto rows of parallel parking spaces along both sides of the narrow two-lane road: one lane on the roadway and the other on the sidewalk. Cars are parked kissing-distance from utility poles. They’re cozied up to hedges and fences and rock walls. They’re wedged in so tightly it’s like they had to have been lined up manually, the way a little boy lines up his toy cars with careful, chubby hands.

Roosters strut by the line of autos, bobbing their heads with each step like, “Nice parking, brah. Nice parking.” Joggers just seem to veer around the clutter.

There aren’t massive clumps of buffalo grass growing up beneath the cars, so it seems as though they do get moved. Very few look like abandoned junkers.

If someone was pushing a double-wide jogging stroller with twins inside, those sidewalk blockages would be a pain. But otherwise, it’s just how Lusitana Street is. It’s amazing. It’s crazy.

A few miles away in Kalihi Valley, the city established the first Residential Restricted Parking Zone earlier this summer after a successful pilot project. The way that works is that residents along certain streets in Wilson Tract get two residential and two visitor permits to park on their street from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Cars without a permit have a one-hour parking max.

Something like this may or may not work on Lusitana. Neighborhoods around the University of Hawaii or near beach parks deal with the influx of outsiders every day.

Lusitana parking seems all-Lusitana, like Wilhelmina Rise and Waipahu and so many other neighborhoods where lots of adults of driving age share the same house but drive separate cars. Many separate cars. Many separate cars that each require overnight parking. And impressive parking skills. (And neighbors who don’t mind sacrificing long stretches of sidewalk.)

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.