Oswego Council To Explore Parking Policy Options

by Steve Yablonski | September 5, 2017 11:08 pm

OSWEGO – Just as certain that it’s going to snow during the winter in the Port City, the Common Council will continue to wrangle with the winter parking policy.

For nearly an hour Tuesday night, the Planning and Development Committee discussed the pros and cons of possible winter parking scenarios.

At the end, they agreed to form a committee to facilitate the creation of a policy that benefits city residents and ensures the safety of the plow operators.

“Essentially, the council would like to me to draft some sort of resolution stating that they’d like a commitment for a committee to be formed; and certainly we could direct the mayor to form a committee with department heads and other involved parties to start to plan and create an action plan to move to a 24/7 alternate (side) street parking policy,” Council President Eric VanBuren said following the meeting.

They will have a couple meetings to discuss how best to address that and then move forward from there, he explained.

You’d have to have the Traffic Advisory Committee be involved as well DPW, fire and police departments among others, he added.

During the day, the city doesn’t have any parking restriction. You’d have a tough time getting a fire truck or ambulance down certain streets, he pointed out.

“When you talk about the ban, it’s a small window of time for them to plow,” VanBuren said. “Getting back to during the day, you have parking on both sides of the street, you’re not getting much plowing done.”

And, he added, you can’t say when it is going to snow or how much will fall.

“We talk about overnight. But, if it’s a case of all day and you’ve just got one side of the street to keep clean, chances are you’re going to have snow and ice build up on the other side,” he said. “With the proper snow removal plan, and we’ve got people engaged in doing that right now, you’re going to have regular intervals of when you know the banks are going to need to be cut back … those are things that are all going to be done under a proper snow removal plan.”

Changes in population, transportation needs, jobs and other things have all factored into the dearth of off-street parking for many Oswegonians today.

“We have more rentals, more student housing, more people are commuting now and everybody needs a car,” he said. “It’s tricky.”

Many of Oswego’s older homes have parking for one vehicle or no parking at all, Seventh Ward Councilor Robert Corradino said.

“It’s 2017 now, not 1957. Parking during the winter, during snowstorms, is an issue,” he said. “There isn’t any one perfect solution. But we need to have a plan that is good for the city as a whole.”

You won’t get a ‘one size fits all’ type of policy, the Council President said.

The DPW commissioner budgeted for a pickup truck with a plow to do some of the narrower locations around the city, VanBuren said.

Currently, the city has a ban with permitted exceptions in place.

It’s a small gesture to accommodate a small group of people, he said, adding that 65 people applied for an on-street parking permit last year and 21 were approved.

Before the city moves to a complete 24/7 policy, there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle they have to pit in place first, Councilor Nate Emmons cautioned.

“And, we can’t keep changing the policy,” he added

Councilor Shawn Walker cautioned the policy should stay as is. If you open it up, there will be a lot more people obtaining parking permits and it will impede the snowplows, he said.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/oswego/oswego-council-to-explore-parking-policy-options/

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