Downtown Warsaw parking issues have a tendency to pop up on the Traffic Commission’s agenda, and Wednesday was no different.
Warsaw Police Department Capt. Joel Beam told the commission they received a request for 45-minute parking in front of the Village Florist Shop, 111 E. Market St., instead of two-hour parking.
Public Works Superintendent Dustin Dillon asked what the reason for the request was, with Traffic Administrator Lance Grubbs responding that the complaint was that “people park there from downtown businesses and then just move and someone else just takes their spot.” The parking spot is always taken up.
Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins, who also lives and owns a business downtown, said that she empathizes because she has apartment dwellers and employees. One vehicle has been parked in front of her place for five days.
“So I think it’s not just a problem in that area. It is a problem throughout the downtown and it’s not that I wouldn’t advocate putting in some 15- or 30-(minute parking limits) - typically we’ve only had 15, so we would have to redo an ordinance to do more than that, I would think,” she said.
Terry Sweeney, the new development director with the Chamber of Commerce, has been working with city and county officials on parking issues, Dobbins said. At this point, before the Traffic Commission would randomly do something about downtown parking, she suggested they take another look at the whole downtown so anything they do would have the best impact.
Dillon said he and Eric Hoffhien, one of his employees, were discussing it and he could get with Sweeney to discuss some ideas and report back to the Traffic Commission at a future meeting.
“But, prior, we just moved a 15-minute parking sign from the block right there on the north side of Buffalo and Market over to the next block over. We just did that about a month ago, so this would be putting a spot just back at the end, right there at the alley intersection, three spots from where we had one before. So I think it’s a little overzealous to make that change right off the bat without some concrete things,” Dillon said.
Dobbins confessed to requesting that move of that 15-minute parking. She said there have been construction workers parked in that 15-minute spot for about three months so it wasn’t really doing anyone any good.
“I anticipate there probably will be construction workers there for another several months yet, so it seemed prudent to move it where it was going to affect several merchants,” Dobbins said.
City Planner Justin Taylor stated, “There may be a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel with this where we’re examining some higher-tech solutions for downtown parking enforcement, which will help us regulate some of these things, so that’s coming down the pipeline as far as our ability to move from our paper system to something more modern.”
Dobbins said they need to give that committee - which includes Sweeney and the Chamber - time to come up with a plan.
Beam agreed with Dobbins, saying it could get confusing if they have a 15-minute spot here, and a 45-minute spot. It also would be hard to enforce.
Council President Jack Wilhite said if people are keeping their cars longer than allowed in two-hour parking spots, what’s to keep them from leaving their cars longer in 15-minute spots.
Jason Brown, commission member and downtown business owner, agreed with Dobbins, saying the commission shouldn’t do anything about the request.
“But the reality of what is happening downtown, as far as parking ... is we have such good development of downtown that creates business. By default that creates employees. By default that creates cars. So what we end up doing is each business’s employees park in front of somebody else’s business. So the development ends up sabotaging the development,” he said.
Regardless if there’s 15-, 30- or 120-minute parking, Brown said drivers are moving their cars one spot at a time during their 10-hour shifts.
“They’re going to be parked here for 10 hours, no matter what. So, it’s like every two hours, all of downtown walks out the front of their businesses, shifts forward 8 feet, locks their car, goes back to work. So it doesn’t matter what we do. That’s the actual problem,” Brown stated.
He said they need to come up with a bigger plan rather than put a Band-Aid on requests as they come along.
“I know of five mayors who have had the same problem,” Grubbs said. “It’s ongoing. It’s something you have to look at every few years and, hopefully, we come up with something that works.”
Brown suggested, “Now what would be great - just throwing out an idea - we do build a parking lot, but we give tax cuts to the businesses that employ the people that have to rent the parking space.”
The Traffic Commission agreed on taking no action on the parking request.
Earlier in the meeting, the commission was presented with a list of locations within city limits where ordinances were needed for stop sign enforcement.
The list included the southwest corner of West Main and the northeast corner of North Union and changing the one-way stop to a two-way stop at Union and Main. Stop sign ordinance would be added for the northeast corner of West Main Street/Miami Street and the southeast corner of West Main Street and West Main Street. West Main is split into two roads, each being one way. Running parallel to the Main Streets is Main Avenue.
Dillon said, “Before Gateway (Grove, a housing addition) was built, it was just a one-way stop right there. So now there’s two-way traffic so now it’s going to be moved to a two-way stop.”
Wilhite said there’s a one-way Main Street going eastbound that T’s into Main Street going westbound.
Brown asked, “Why do we allow so many streets to be named Main? I could come up with words.”
Beam agreed with Brown that a road name change was needed. Someone noted the different Mains creates issues for mail delivery, dispatch, fire and EMS.
Hoffhien said if it was possible, if they could rename one of the Main Streets and Main Avenue, in the sense of public safety, that would be paramount.
Taylor said the Warsaw Plan Commission would start the process of changing a road name, but asked if they wanted to just change Main Avenue or the Main Avenue and Main Street westbound. It was noted that Main Avenue doesn’t have any addresses on it, but Main Street westbound does. Taylor was not sure he would support renaming the Main Street westbound, but he would support renaming Main Avenue.
Beam said to eliminate confusion, he thought they should get rid of all the Main streets except for the main Main Street. Brown made a motion to approach the Plan Commission with the change recommendation, and Beam seconded it.
Warsaw Community and Economic Development Director Jeremy Skinner said any new street name has to go through a database and be checked to make sure there are no duplicate names. There are names like Main Avenue and Main Street, but those technically are not duplicates. He said while there’s eastbound and westbound Main Street, they’re the same road, they’re just split and it might be more confusing to change the name of westbound Main Street. Skinner said they could change Main Avenue, especially since there’s no addresses on there.
Brown changed his motion to recommend that the name of Main Avenue be changed, Beam seconded it and the motion passed.