At the last Board of Trustees Meeting on April 14, an ordinance was passed to limit parking on Meadowbrook Lane to 4-hour parking - effectively banning commuter parking from that location. The origin of this was at the request of some people who felt that commuters who were parking there infringed on the ability of people to park there to use the park.
I voted against this ordinance and feel strongly that this is not the right solution.
At a minimum, the park is virtually unused from November-April - meaning for almost 6 months out of the year, we have prime parking available within walking distance to the train which does not negatively impact anybody. Clearly things get more complicated from April-November, but in reality, even during the warmer months the park (or certainly the parking) is virtually unused until around 4pm when baseball, soccer etc begins. That leaves a very small window (roughly from 4pm-6:30pm, when commuters arrive home) when there are competing interests for the space. (Plus, we can exclude Friday evening when no games are scheduled).
Banning all commuter parking (by imposing a 4 hour limit) year-round for a problem that has a limited window of time, is the wrong solution in my opinion.
Along with other reasons, people move to this community for our proximity to NYC and ease of commute by train. The waiting list for commuter permit parking is up around 700 people currently. Alternative parking sites are being explored to expand the inventory of parking, but that won't happen overnight. In an earlier blog entry I shared my support for higher parking permit fees to encourage people to use the jitney, as well as reducing hoarding of permits and also encouraging people in close proximity to the train to try walking or biking. Again, that won't happen overnight. So, in the meantime, to totally eliminate available parking for 100 cars (currently used by about 65 cars each day) now seems premature until a comprehensive solution is identified. The only result this ordinance will have is to push cars to surrounding residential streets, aggravating those homeowners who will now have cars in front of their home all day.
I've already been contacted by many angry residents (and non-residents) who are negatively impacted by this and I expect we have not heard the last word, yet.
1 comment:
Michael - why can't this be revisited a la parking in Grove Park where your colleague was adamant that we meet as many times as it takes to "get it right"?
Might I suggest meters with credit card swipes and raise the daily fee to $10? I'll bet you'll miraculously find support. Good luck with this.
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