GENEVA \u2014 When the city lifted overnight parking restrictions in a pilot program initiated nine years ago, it was done following many mild winters.<\/p>\n
The decision by the administration, led by then-City Manager Matt Horn, was this: Why make so many residents without off-street parking scramble to move their cars from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. when there was little snow for city crews to clear?<\/p>\n
The city moved to an alert system in which drivers were text-messaged or emailed, informing them that they needed to get their cars off the street overnight in advance of expected heavy snow to make it easier for crews to clear streets. The alerts are posted online, too, including the city\u2019s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
However, the city has experienced more snowfall the last two winters, including the most in recent memory this past winter \u2014 and Ward 6 City Councilor Jamie Kaim Jr. claimed the alert system was a failure.<\/p>\n
At the April 1 Council meeting, Kaim said it was time to end the alert program, asking colleagues to adopt its previous winter parking regulations that prohibited on-street parking, unless otherwise designated, from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. from Nov. 1 to April 1.<\/p>\n
Kaim said the announcement-based system \u201chas created significant operational and public safety challenges.\u201d In particular, he said the system is a \u201cburden to DPW, increasing the amount of times they have to re-pass streets due to parked cars, making streets harder for vehicle traffic to pass by limiting amount of roadway cleared, causing sitting snow to build up and turn to ice in the roadways and making it difficult on equipment and taking up parking spots in residential and commercial areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further, Kaim said, many drivers miss the announcements.<\/p>\n
He said the city needs to get \u201cback to what it was when we could get the streets clean.\u201d He insisted that it \u201cwasn\u2019t really DPW that kicked this off. It was the amount of complaints from the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kaim said bus drivers, downtown business owners, and residents are concerned about parked cars that get buried by snow in the process, reducing the number of available daytime parking spots. In general, towing these cars has been a move the city has been reluctant to make, Kaim said, adding that those decisions need to be made by City Manager Amie Hendrix or another high-ranking official.<\/p>\n
Other council members sympathized with Kaim\u2019s arguments, but suggested that a move back to the former parking regulations might not be needed.<\/p>\n
Ward 4 Councilor Pete Gillotte said it might be better to look at more problematic streets, including narrow ones, \u201cinstead of an \u201cumbrella policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two residents of South Main Street who spoke during the public comment portion told Council they were opposed to the city moving back to the previous overnight restrictions, which resulted in parking being allowed only on one side of South Main Street overnight. Parking restrictions rotated from one side to the other based on the day.<\/p>\n
Jerry Buckley called moving back to the former parking ordinance a \u201cbad idea that won\u2019t die. \u2026 The reality is it\u2019s working.\u201d He said the alert system has been improved and is working well. \u201cThis (proposal) is not resident-friendly, it\u2019s not business-friendly, and it\u2019s not tourism-friendly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Eileen Buckley, Jerry Buckley\u2019s sister-in-law, called the suggestion by Kaim \u201cdownright hostile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another South Main resident, Barb Rokow, said the alert system \u201cworks wonderfully. \u2026 I don\u2019t think (moving back to an overnight parking ban) fixes the problem. It\u2019s an enormous burden on the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Mayor Jim Cecere suggested Kaim revise his proposal after speaking with fellow ward representatives for potential changes on problematic streets as opposed to a wholesale change. The mayor suggested Kaim return next month with a revised proposal reflecting those suggestions, and Kaim agreed to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA \u2014 When the city lifted overnight parking restrictions in a pilot program initiated nine years ago, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[65,27142,27140,2521,4620,14463,186,2726,27141,10039],"class_list":{"0":"post-46865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-geneva","8":"tag-geneva","9":"tag-geneva-city","10":"tag-land-transport","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-parking","13":"tag-regulations","14":"tag-road-transport","15":"tag-transport","16":"tag-vehicles","17":"tag-winter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116379203888562955","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}