City may abolish N. Main on-street parking

By Mary Spicer

08/20/08 — As one Prospect Street resident sees it, a few more cars in search of parking spaces won’t make any difference in her life. “Once the students are back, there are no free spaces on my street,” Annette Lynch said Tuesday.

Living only two blocks from the campus, Lynch once had great hopes that the construction of a new Allegheny College parking lot on the corner of Prospect and Park Avenue would have an impact on on-street parking in her neighborhood. So far, however, that hasn’t happened. “The students tell me they won’t pay to park there, so they won’t do it,” she said.

This afternoon, members of Meadville City Council will consider a resolution authorizing a 90-day trial that would eliminate approximately 25 parking spaces along two sections of North Main Street passing through the Allegheny campus. The proposed parking ban would effectively eliminate parking between John Street, which enters campus just south of the former Odd Fellows Building, and Loomis Street, which serves as part of the southern boundary of the campus.

According to Larry Lee, Allegheny’s associate vice president for finance and planning, any fears that the move might cause parking spill-over into residential streets are unfounded.

While nine spaces between John and Prospect streets and about another 16 spaces between Lord’s Gate and Loomis Street would be eliminated, a new 92-space on-campus lot near the new Vukovich Theatre and Communication Arts building will open in time for the first day of classes on Aug. 28, Lee said. During the past three years, the college has added more than 200 on-campus parking spaces.

As Lee sees it, the vast majority of those affected will be faculty and staff. “I see a lot of staff parking there for the day,” he said, noting that most of the vehicles leave for the day between 4 and 5 p.m. “People want the most convenient parking they can get,” Lee added. “If they can park next door to their building, that’s what they’ll do. People tend to choose convenience.”

He isn’t concerned about faculty and staff spillover into nearby residential neighborhoods for one reason: Plenty of other options are available on-campus. “Even the large lot behind Odd Fellows (on the corner of North Main and Allegheny Street) is very close to most of the academic buildings,” he said.

On-campus parking is free for faculty and staff, but students pay an annual fee of $150. According to Lynch, therein lies the rub. Lee disagrees, noting that student leaders agreed the fee was reasonable when it was imposed.

While he isn’t concerned that eliminating on-street parking in the middle of campus might have an effect on nearby neighborhoods, taking a similar step along its west side is another story. “I see people moving their cars into the residential neighborhoods if there was ever an effort to eliminate parking on Park Avenue,” Lee said.

As for what steps the college might take to encourage students to purchase a permit and park on campus, “When you have a population of 2,000 students living on campus, you are going to have someone who says $1 is too much,” he said.

If approved by council, the trial period would begin as soon as the necessary signage is put into place, according to City Manager Joe Chriest. However, Chriest noted Monday that city workers are currently working on several other projects. “It’s hard to say if it can start before Allegheny starts,” he said.

An idea whose time has come?

Vehicle-related concerns are nothing new in the area immediately surrounding Allegheny College. Traditionally, these concerns have centered around two key factors: extended-stay parking and pedestrian safety.

Over the years, for example, efforts to eliminate “permaparked” cars have resulted in the ban of overnight parking in several locations, including Sherman Street, which serves the remainder of the campus’ southern border.

In December 2004, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Allegheny unveiled new crosswalk alert signs and a massive education effort. While there had been no fatal crashes in the college portion of North Main Street in recent memory, the college’s director of safety and security said at the time that 22 accidents had been reported between Loomis and Allegheny streets in recent years. At the time, Meadville resident Hugh King expressed surprise that no one had been killed recently.

The impending construction of North Village, apartment-style dorms and parking on the block bounded by North Main, Limber Road, Highland Avenue and East John Street, rekindled the flames in May 2005. Pat Bywater, a resident of Highland just north of the development and the Tribune’s executive editor, prompted a discussion of the impact of both the students and parking for their vehicles. At the time, Mayor Richard Friedberg suggested using the Sherman Street solution to any long-term parking problems that might arise — banning overnight parking on surrounding streets.

The most recent seeds of this change were planted in June 2007, when Meadville City Councilman Christopher Soff expressed his fear that someone was going to get hurt crossing North Main as it travels through the center of campus. At the time, there were three specific crossing areas.

According to Soff, many of the scariest moments took place at night. “If you add rain to that, it can be very difficult to see someone waiting to cross the street,” he said at the time. During the summer that followed, the three existing crosswalks were consolidated into two, and parking was eliminated in the surrounding areas. From King’s perspective, it made a difference.

The latest move would complete the elimination of parking along the stretch, a step King believes would help the situation even more. “A flashing yellow light — especially at night, might help,” he added during a Tuesday interview.

When Meadville resident B.J. Smith suggested the possibility of eliminating parking along both North Main and Park Avenue in May 2008, Lee wrote an opinion piece for the Tribune ending with the words, “The time seems right for the city to consider banning parking on North Main Street in the area of Allegheny College, and we are fully supportive of this move.”

“We’re not pushing for it, but if people want the cars removed, OK,” Lee said Monday

A safety-related project involving the same area, the creation of “pedestrian refuges” at the crosswalks along the west side of the street, had recently been placed on temporary hold. During council’s Aug. 6 study session, Chriest said that city crews had too many other projects under way to “do it and do it right” before the start of school.

The project was specifically designed to give pedestrians a safe place to wait where they would no longer be hidden by parked vehicles. If the parking experiment is successful, that may not be necessary, according to Chriest.

Lee agrees. “The combination of consolidating crosswalks and removing cars had a tremendously positive impact on the safety of people crossing North Main,” he said Tuesday. “If that made it that much safer, how about moving the other cars? When you have a community of 2,500 people, you are going to have those who cross between cars. If you remove the cars, there aren’t cars to come out between.”

What to watch for next

Meadville City Council will meet Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the Meadville City Building on Water Street for its regularly-scheduled study session. The public is welcome to attend. In addition to a resolution authorizing the removal of parking on North Main Street where it passes through the Allegheny College campus, other items on the agenda include a continued discussion of a city curfew and a discussion on updating the city’s property-maintenance regulations.