Residents ask for clarity
Neighborhood leaders say city needs to issue moratorium, reforms
Following a series of ticketwriting sweeps, the Stockade Association is asking the city to untangle what it contends is a confusing thicket of parking regulations.
There are two-hour limits, alternate-side regulations and “no standing” zones.
Yet residents have said they thought the faded signs were long defunct because regulations in the historic district haven’t been enforced until a recent crackdown.
Now neighborhood leaders are calling on the city to issue a moratorium on single-side parking rules and consider reforming the others.
“I think there’s a lot of ways to work with city leadership and it’s a matter of finding new and innovative ways to work together,” said Chris White, a Stockade resident who is spearheading the push.
A temporary ban would be the first step in scrapping what advocates contend are outdated and seldom-enforced requirements, some of which date back to the 1950s to accommodate shift changes at nearby General Electric facilities.
To put it simply: In a neighborhood with no parking garages and where many homes lack driveways, parking is at a premium and strict enforcement of the regulations would effectively cut the already-limited
slots in half.
Yet at the same time, city officials say the cramped confines hamper snow-removal efforts. As work crews struggled earlier this winter to dig out from a storm that dumped nearly 3 feet of snow on the city, officials pointed at illegally parked cars as one of the main reasons for clogged streets.
Regulations for the stretch of Union Street west of Erie Boulevard bar parking on alternate sides of the street from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m.
Following a fresh round of criticism in February, city police began blanketing cars parked overnight along the three-block strip with $35 tickets, a campaign White said left residents “petrified.”
Chris Marney told the Stockade Association he received his sixth ticket last week.
People don’t mind adhering to clearly delineated regulations, White said, but implementation should not be abrupt and arbitrary, and must be properly communicated.
Enforcement data remains elusive
The Times Union requested five years of parking ticket citations issued along the 100 and 200 blocks of Union Street on Feb. 23.
But the city was unable to provide that information by Wednesday, the deadline for when it needed to either fulfill the request or formally ask for more time to process the inquiry under the state’s Freedom of Information Law.
The Stockade Association also wants the city to study the effectiveness of the twohour parking signs, which they contend no longer serve their original purpose after MVP Health Care relocated from their former Liberty Street headquarters in 2002.
Following the sweeps, residents signed a petition asking the city to nix the regulations, and the Stockade Association last week asked Mayor Gary Mccarthy to commit to a moratorium, which does not require approval from the City Council.
The city has started removing the two-hour signs, and Mccarthy said on Wednesday he will tour the neighborhood with community leaders next week.
While he has not yet made a decision on a moratorium, with the city experiencing a spurt of development that hasn’t been seen in the past half-century, Mccarthy acknowledges “commonsense” parking reforms are needed.
“It won’t make everybody 100 percent happy, but hopefully they’ll understand the rationale behind it,” Mccarthy said.
The mayor wants to create a virtual map of citywide parking regulations on the city’s website.
The city’s messaging on the parking crackdown has been somewhat muddled.
Mccarthy initially said city police conducted the sweeps without consultation from City Hall and “it really wasn’t done in the best and most coordinated manner.”
Yet the mayor told neighborhood leaders last week the sweeps are part of a citywide campaign to tighten enforcement following complaints of noncompliance. Police have said they simply enforce all parking rules.
Schenectady United Neighborhoods President Tom Carey said the problems appear to be largely limited to the Stockade.
Carey advised the city to examine and adopt what works best in other localities, including the city of Albany.
“If it’s not a snow event situation, they shouldn’t have to have [single-side parking] year-round like that,” Carey said on Wednesday.
If the alternate-side parking is kept in place, residents want more clarity on how the city will use the five-hour overnight window when one side of the street is ostensibly clear.
Street sweepers are ideally supposed to make the rounds weekly after trash collection, Mccarthy said.
But residents said the machines’ presence can be scant.
Gloria Kishton wants city officials to commit to a meeting with Stockade residents to figure out a “rational and reasonable plan” to provide services.
“You don’t mind so much if you know there’s a reason why,” Kishton said. “If we’re going to go through the hassle of moving our cars every night, we want to see some services.”
For White, drawing attention to the parking problem is just the first in what he hopes will be a broader issues-based campaign under his “Fix Schenectady” banner.
“Let’s rally behind a single issue to start,” White said, “and in the future, we can see what other issues people care about.”