Traffic Panel Recommends Harrison Ridge Parking, Signage Changes
Posted
Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
Warsaw Traffic Safety Commission approved submitting a favorable recommendation to the city council for parking and stop sign changes in Harrison Ridge Subdivision Wednesday.
The proposal is to prohibit parking on the north and south sides of Natureview Drive from Husky Trail to Shellbark Lane in the subdivision.
The commission also approved placing a stop sign at the northwest corner of Husky Trial and Natureview Drive and installing a stop sign at the northwest corner of Shellbark Lane.
The subdivision is north of Harrison Elementary School.
Kip Shuter, Warsaw Police Dept. traffic commission administrator, said he received concerns from Harrison Ridge Subdivision residents about residents not parking in their driveways.
Instead, there were residents parking on the street in the subdivision that poses a problem for other residents and emergency vehicles getting through in the subdivision.
In other business, the commission also reviewed a request for angle parking in downtown Warsaw on the north side of Center Street from Indiana Street west to Lake Street.
The request also included a proposal for angle parking on the south side of Market Street from Indiana to Lake streets and angle parking on the east side of Buffalo Street from Main Street to the alley south of Market Street.
The request was from Mary Ellen Rudisel-Jordan, Scearce-Rudisel Architects; John Elliott, First Source Bank; and Andy Garrett, Crownover Jewelry.
Traffic commission member Steve Foster made a motion to deny the request for the downtown angle parking as presented, and commission member Jerry Patterson seconded the motion.
After discussion, the commission decided the city did not feel it would like to spend the money for a traffic study to determine if angle parking was needed and did not feel angle parking was necessary.
Jeremy Skinner, city planner, said the city would need to conduct a traffic study, but if someone wanted to pay for the study the city would be willing to look at the proposal again.
“I think we need to continue to be frugal with tax payers’ money,” Patterson said.
Foster said when he was employed with the police department there were changes made to remove the diagonal parking downtown many years ago.
He said at that time there were sections with angle parking that had a higher crash rate than comparable sections with parallel parking.
Foster said while parallel parking is preferred for safety and operational considerations, drawbacks are that drivers and passengers may have to exit the vehicle into the road.
He also said parking maneuvers take more time with angle parking, some drivers may have to execute angle parking maneuvers multiple times, and there may be interruptions of traffic movements with angle parking.
Angle parking also would be less desirable because the driver leaving a space has limited visibility to the rear, Foster said.
Other issues Foster pointed out are empty spaces are difficult to detect by approaching drivers resulting in stop and go movements, and through traffic decreases speed in anticipation of conflict movements creating a potential for increased number of crashes.
