Petitions Update, Join us on 1/23

Welcome to 2012! Quite a lot will change on our block this year, it should be exciting. As you know, we have been circulating two petitions for modifications to the street as part of the RSVP project and another petition for parking permits passed a couple months ago but is in a bit of trouble at the neighborhood council level. We need your help with all of these, so here’s an update.

Parking Permits

Even though we gathered more than the 60% support for changes to the Area 21 parking permits, the Mac-Groveland Community Council’s Transportation Committee refused to support our petition in December. Instead, it will be brought up again at their meeting at 6:30pm Monday, 1/23, at the Edgcumbe Rec Center. We really need as many advocates for this permit as possible to join us at this meeting!

In December some vocal neighbors from Lincoln between Prior and Howell complained that the transportation committee would only be nudging the St. Thomas parking problem eastward by supporting permit parking on Lincoln between Cleveland and Prior. This may be the case, but we are following the process the committee laid out for us at their January 2011 meeting. We were offered no resolution for St. Thomas parking issues by either St. Thomas or the city except this permit process. Now is the time to turn out to advocate for the parking permits!

Traffic Circle and Bumpouts

In December we worked with the city to draw up two petitions for traffic calming modifications to Lincoln as part of the RSVP process. Neighbors have been circulating these petitions since mid-December. The bumpouts have not been very well received, and that petition has already failed. The idea of a traffic circle at Lincoln and Prior that matches the one installed at Lincoln and Finn last year has seen considerably more support and is currently on track for the 75% approval required to succeed. You check up on these at our petition progress page.

We less than two weeks to complete the traffic circle petition, though. There are 22 houses on Lincoln that we have failed to reach. If you can help out with door knocking or phone calls to these neighbors, please let me know! The petition is due at the city on Friday, 1/13.