Bristol, CT Parking Rules: RV & Boat Parking (2026)

Bristol Code of Ordinances Sec. 14-71 governs how long a recreational vehicle, defined to include a motor home, travel trailer, camper or camping trailer, or a nonfreight trailer hauling a boat, horse, motorcycle, show car, race car, snowmobile or bicycle, can occupy a public roadway in the City of Bristol, Connecticut. Subsection (a) caps ordinary roadway parking at eighteen hours while the vehicle is engaged in loading or unloading passengers, merchandise or materials, and extends that to forty-eight hours only if the vehicle is involuntarily stopped by mechanical failure or another emergency.

The same section separately regulates heavy commercial vehicles, defined by a gross vehicle weight over ten thousand pounds, a rated capacity over one ton, a length over twenty-one feet, or a height over eight feet, and buses carrying more than ten passengers. Subsection (b) allows those larger vehicles to park on a roadway abutting commercial or industrial-zoned property on both sides of the street, but bars them from any other public roadway unless the vehicle is loading or unloading, working on an abutting property, a bus holding a scheduled stop of no more than thirty minutes at an authorized state-permitted terminal, disabled for forty-eight hours or less, or a public contractor's vehicle performing city, state or utility work.

The definitions in subsection (c) set the exact weight, length and height thresholds that trigger 'heavy commercial vehicle' status and specify that municipal, farm and agricultural vehicles are excluded. Sec. 14-70's residential-zone restrictions apply separately once any of these vehicles leaves the public roadway for a residential driveway or yard.