What to do about downtown parking?: Officials wonder if angle parking would ease problem
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Many point to ample parking space behind businesses located on Main Street near the water tower when the subject of downtown parking arises. Located between Main and Colville, those open spaces are often touted as a solution to the parking situation.
But if one wants to park on Main Street itself, the situation leaves a lot to be desired.
Recently, the city has increased its enforcement of parking violations, making a noticeable difference to offenders who work around the courthouse or at any of the downtown businesses.
Parking warden Sue Jones, who enforces parking violations downtown, said the main problems appear to be with employers parking on the street. She has also suggested more handicapped spaces be available.
“If the employers and employees wouldn’t park downtown on Main Street, there would be more parking places for the customers,” she suggested.
Main Street McMinnville officials are also attempting to tackle the parking issue. They are consulting with Main Street planners EG&G Inc., which is working on a master plan for the downtown area. Although some have said one solution for the parking problem might be angled parking spaces similar to parking available around Court Square, that solution was less than well received by Main Street designers this summer.
That may be changing, Main Street McMinnville Director Amy Jo Stanford said.
“It’s sort of up in the air because we have several people who had requested angled parking. Some of the businesses downtown wanted angled parking, so we took it back to EG&G and they’re looking into some of the surveys,” she said, adding that another idea was to take Spring Street back to a two-way street.
The problems with designing angled parking are a matter of space, she added.
“You’ve got narrow streets downtown and it takes, I think, between 45 and 49 feet if you’re going to have some angled parking from building to building because it takes into account the sidewalks, the streets and the parking,” she said.
“Parallel parking doesn’t take as much space. That’s what we’ve got now, so E.G.&G. is looking to see if there is some room to put some angled parking in. Angled parking is just easier for people to use.”
Stanford said both Main Street, as an organization, and downtown businesses believe angled parking will make the area more business-friendly. Jones agreed.
“It would probably create more spaces for people to park in, but I don’t know how they would do it and have two lanes,” she said.
Stanford said EG&G is supposed to return to McMinnville next month for another consultation with citizens and Main Street McMinnville. She hoped citizens would respond to an informal survey included with this story that asks residents what they would like to see.
Should angle parking become a reality, Stanford added it would most likely occur in “interior” downtown blocks which do not have as much access to the parking lots near the water tower, possibly near Union Planters Bank to the old Fraley’s building.
City Administrator Herb Llewellyn exhibited a cautious attitude, noting the concept of angled parking is just an idea at this point. He did acknowledge more enforcement of parking violations, however.
“The big thing is we had a gap when no one downtown was enforcing the laws,” he said of public awareness now that a parking warden has been in place.