The residents of the neighborhood surrounding Pocketbook Hudson are requesting a resident parking permit system to discourage patrons and guests of the hotel, restaurant, and bath from parking on the street in front of their homes. Those who have lived in Hudson for a while will recall that this is not the first time the idea of restricting onstreet parking to residents only has been proposed.
Back in 2014, people living on McKinstry Place and Rossman Avenue were having problems with hospital workers taking their onstreet parking spaces. Despite the hospital having a multilevel parking garage, hospital employees were choosing to park on the street to avoid having to pay to park in the parking garage.
In June 2o14, Mayor William Hallenbeck proposed resident parking permits for the area immediately around the hospital. In the usual course of things, the proposal went to the Common Council Legal Committee to be turned into a law. Wanting to avoid simply exporting the problem from the immediate area of the hospital to an adjacent area, the Legal Committee, after considerable study, expanded the boundaries of the parking permit area to include everything within two blocks in every direction of the hospital. Hallenbeck complained that the Legal Committee had turned his proposal "into a monster." Opponents called the expanded area "humongous."
The Common Council voted to enact the law in March 2015. It was a narrow victory: 1,104 votes in favor; 924 opposed. (This was back in the day of the weighted vote.) Hallenbeck vetoed the law, and because there were not sufficient votes to override a mayoral veto, the issue was not pursued. Hallenbeck then called for a resident parking policy that applied to the entire city, but that proposal was not taken up by the Council.
It will be interesting to see if, eleven years later, the idea of resident parking permits enjoys any greater support and success.
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The first order of business should be determining how much a permit system would cost to implement: signs and sign poles will have to be purchased, PLUS DPW labor to install them, PLUS the cost of purchasing the permits that go on windshields PLUS the administrative costs of doing all this. If there's no money for the signs, etc. DROP THE IDEA IMMEDIATELY! Talking about enacting a permit system won't make it affordable. Let's not forget that the SAFETY committee has also discussed a residential parking permit system for upper and lower Warren Street. The necessary funds keep piling up. Funds we likely do not have.
ReplyDeleteIf there's one thing the council (present and past) is good at is talking about great ideas. Ideas we can't afford or don't know how to get off the ground. Now when will all of our sidewalks be repaired and safe as part of the SID project that looks like it won't even begin this year?
Sounds like another idea to extract additional fees from residents. If these big projects, hotels, PB factory, apartments, are creating a problem that requires a whole new system of residential parking permits and enforcement to be implemented, then they shoul be required to finance it, the costs should not be imposed on the residents.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat (un)related - can Hudson please consider a permanent moratorium on alternate street night parking- every single night?
ReplyDeleteDo the streets need cleaning every night? This might HELP alleviate the parking problem around Pocketbook, and around Hudson in general. And potentially save money on the parking police and the night street sweepers. If someone can fill me in on why these alt side parking rules were enacted in the first place that would be helpful to understand.
Just type in "street cleaning" in the search function at the top of this blog, and you'll see it.
DeleteAlternate side of the street parking has been complained about and discussed for years. Here is a post from five years ago that provides the best explanation of why the rules exist: https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2021/02/news-from-common-council-meeting-part-3.html
DeleteThe police department -- especially now that they have taken over all matters related to parking -- will NEVER stop ticketing every night. They will fight any sane changes tooth and nail. Of course, none of them ever have to worry about being ticketed at night.
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