Category Archives: Parking

Petitions Update, Join us on 1/23

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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.

Transportation Committee fails to support Area 21 parking permit changes

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Last night’s presentation of the Area 21 parking permit did not go well. According to Sara Mountain and Steve Gorg, a few vocal opponents carried the day and got the Transportation Committee of the Mac-Groveland Community Council to table the permit instead of lending it their support. Luckily, this is not the end of the road for our parking permit petition effort, just a significant speed bump.

It is best if these permit parking petitions get the support of community councils so that the city council gets a clear sense that the process was a good one and the support of the neighborhood is present. However, the deciding agency on parking permits is city council, not the community council. We can and will still carry this petition forward to city council.

We are not sure which city council public hearing will include our petition as an agenda item. It is likely to be not he evening of Wednesday 1/18, 2/1, or 2/15, but details have yet to be worked out. It is very clear that every one of us who support the new Area 21 permits, including the extension of permit parking to the remainder of Lincoln between Prior and Cleveland, be present at this hearing when it happens.

We took the neighborhood council for granted. We let Sara and Steve carry our burden alone, and that was unfair and unsuccessful. Be ready to speak out yourself for the importance of this parking permit to city council. We will keep you informed about the details of the upcoming meeting.

Permit parking petition has enough signatures!

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Sara Mountain got the word today that her Area 21 parking permit petition has passed it’s first test: she got enough signatures! A big thanks to Sara and Mike who hiked around the neighborhood this summer and fall getting signatures. Here’s what they learned in an email from Elizabeth Stiffler today:

This email is to inform you that Traffic Engineering has received a sufficient petition to modify Permit Parking Area 21 in the following ways:

1) Add the north side of Lincoln Avenue from 1943 through 2009, and the south side of Lincoln from 1944 through 2022.

2) Change the restrictions for all of Area 21 to 8 am to 5 pm, Mon-Fri, September 1-April 30, Except Holidays.

The petition contains 74 out of 111 signatures or 67%. At the time the petition was issued, the minimum percentage for a sufficient petition was 60%. Since then the City Code was modified and therefore the minimum for any future petition to modify the area will be 75%.

I am working that Mac Groveland District Council have a public meeting with the affected property owners about these changes. Possible dates discussed were Monday, December 12th or 19th. The changes would go to City Council for a public hearing in January and go into affect 30 days after approved. Sign installation will be weather dependent.

Our parking permit page has more information on this effort.