A parking plan for Park Avenue is still a work in progress, according to City Council member Tim Henney, as the city tries to balance the activities of neighborhood residents, employees, customers and city crews.
Henney told KPCW that parking in the area is kind of a free for all. He talked about one concerned resident of the neighborhood, Joe Butterfield, who has appeared before council recently.
“My impression was that Joe was concerned about the enormous amount of what we could call unauthorized parking on Park Avenue for extended periods of time.” Henney said, “I think that’s a little bit of overflow from the historic commercial district. It’s probably, I’m guessing but I think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that some employees have figured out that you can park on Park Avenue and there are no restrictions, no regulation and they park there as their free parking. That parking extends all the way past the library on Park Avenue on both sides of the road. If you’re a resident and you are trying to maneuver through Park Avenue whether you’re pulling out of your driveway or whatever it is. There are just cars there all the time. Should that be residential parking? Should that be commercial overflow parking? Those are the sorts of decisions that need to be made.”
He said Butterfield brought up another concern at council’s meeting last week.
“What we heard from Joe again at this most recent meeting was that during snowfall events where we prohibit parking on the streets, so that we can move the snow.” Henney explained, “That is very disruptive to the residents who use street parking for some of their parking needs. We’ve got to figure this out and we know that it’s a big issue. I would guess that there may even be skiers who are parking on Park Avenue and then riding the Town Lift. We have to figure out where we want this parking to occur. Whether we want it to be regulated for time for overnight. Whether we want it to be free or paid. All those sorts of things.”
