Before I moved to West Orange, I lived in downtown Newark on Halsey Street. It was great and I loved everything about my apartment … except for parking.
There was no off street parking and every road in the immediate vicinity was metered. Some days, I’d be up early enough to move before the meter started. Other times, I’d park a half mile away because that’s the only place I could leave it for the day.
I’ve played the parking game. And it sucks.
So when I heard residents from the Valley come to the Council over and over and over again to ask for relief, I could sympathize. I’m happy they finally got the parking permit ordinance they’ve been asking for. But it took way too long and it’s only part of the solution.
It’s also a perfect example of why the Council is not the appropriate venue to draft legislation – and we need a Mayor and an administration that will be responsive to residents’ concerns.
More on that another time. For now, let’s focus on what the problem is and what we can do to address it.
Defining the Parking Problem
The core problem is simple. People who live in the Valley, especially those on the alphabet streets, have trouble finding parking.
The problem is that two different explanations have been offered for why this happens. According to the administration, it’s a shortage of parking spots. According to some residents, it’s the usage of those spots by students from Seton Hall Prep.
In reality, it’s a combination of the two.
As reported by the administration based on the surveys they’ve sent out, there are more people who want to park on the street in the valley than there are available parking spaces.
On the one hand, there are a limited number of parking spaces. It’s worth pointing out, though, that they consistently talked about the total number of permits requested and not the total number of cars that would be parked on the street at any given time. During the day, many cars would be at work. And in the evening, many cars would be parked in driveways.
A home might request three parking permits because there are three cars that come and go. But they might park one or two of them in the driveway at any given time. So simply comparing the number of permits requested to the number of spots available is misleading.
As reported by the residents, many of these scarce spaces are taken up on school days by students who attend Seton Hall Prep. I’ve witnessed this with my own eyes. When I run through the area in the morning, it’s hard to miss all of the students walking in the direction of the Prep.
If parking wasn’t scarce, this might not be a problem. But precisely because parking is scarce, it’s important to ensure that it’s available for residents. It’s common for residential neighborhoods to enforce permit parking to prevent commuters from parking near train stations. The same concept applies here.
It’s also worth noting that there was a comprehensive parking study done across the entire town last year. There is a ton of useful data here. They didn’t specifically address the question of whether students were taking up spots, but it is worth noting that their data showed higher usage on a Thursday afternoon (a schoolday) than a Saturday. It’s also worth noting that usage was high in both cases.
Defining the Solutions
The goal then is two-fold. We need to a) reduce the number of non-residents parking on the street and b) increase the number of available spots.
Residential Parking Permits
The simplest way to reduce the number of non-residents parking on the street is what some of the residents have been asking for for years: parking permits. By requiring parking permits to park on the street during school hours, you effectively eliminate the usage of street parking by Seton Hall Prep students.
Those students might not be happy about this. But, frankly, I don’t sympathize with them in this situation. If the choice is between someone parking at their house and someone parking at their school – the homeowner or tenant wins every time. The school can come up with other solutions, like a shuttle from the athletic facility. And one way or another, underclassmen find a way to transport themselves to school before they have a drivers’ license.
If this becomes a legitimate problem for the school, the we could also look into selling a small number of permit spots at the parking lots off Valley and Lindsley to students. They are less than a half mile from the school, so well within walking distance.
Enforcing Commercial Vehicle Restrictions
Another solution, however, is to enforce restrictions for commercial vehicles parked on residential streets or in residential driveways. West Orange has an ordinance that limits this, and it would prevent commercial vehicles from taking up those scarce spots.
We don’t have the resources to monitor this 24/7. But periodic surges in enforcement would be a good way to educate residents in the area and encourage their compliance with the ordinance. In East Orange, Mayor Ted Green hosts a regular “Mayor on the Block” where he and some of this staff visit neighborhoods. Doing something similar would be another opportunity to enforce this and other code violations.
Depending on the volume of vehicles that need to be moved and parked elsewhere, we could also look into issuing a select number of permits for use in our municipal lots. There’s plenty of capacity overnight. And even during the day time, there is plenty of capacity at the library and some of the other municipal parking lots.
Reviewing Alternate Side Parking Regulations
A third solution is to increase the number of parking spaces available by revisiting parking regulations.
Currently, many of the streets are subject to some form of alternate side parking restriction. This often gets misconstrued in the conversation as synonymous with street cleaning. But there are two types of restrictions.
Some streets, like Quinby have alternate side parking restrictions that cover most of the week. One side is no parking Thursday, Friday, Saturday. The other is no parking Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning. Parking is permitted Wednesday evenings and Sundays.
The rationale for these regulations is that the streets are too narrow and permitting parking on both sides could obstruct emergency vehicles. It’s not simply for street cleaning.
This is different from a street like Rollinson, which just has no parking on Thursday mornings from 8AM to 10AM. This is a true street cleaning restriction, and the rationale is to clear the street for the street sweeper to come through.
The administration recommended that all of the alternate side streets be converted to one way streets. This would allow for parking on both sides of the street, except for a brief window for street cleaning.
This proved very unpopular with residents. It’s also the most disruptive choice. If, after other options have been explored, it’s still necessary, it may be worth reconsideration. But there are other options.
Most of these streets are not heavily trafficked through streets. There’s very little reason to be on Swaine Place unless you live on Swaine place. Some of these streets could be preserved as alternate side parking streets to allow through streets for emergency vehicles, while others could transition to street cleaning restrictions with parking on both sides of the street.
Transitioning one or two streets at a time would open up additional parking in the area and allow the impact to be monitored.
As an alternative to fully eliminating the alternate side restrictions, those restrictions could also be limited to the daytime. Parking demand will be lower during the day – when people are at work and permit parking restricts parking to residents. Parking demand will be highest in the evening, when most people are home. Traffic will also be the slowest, and you don’t have to worry about traffic obstructing an emergency vehicle at 10PM.
So What’s the Plan?
When you put it all together, here’s the plan:
- Monitor the implementation of parking permits for residents and expand the parking zone to include all impacted streets.
- Initiate a “Mayor on the Block” program, which will include visits to this area to educate residents about parking ordinances (including restrictions on commercial vehicles).
- Perform targeted surges of enforcement to cite parking or code violations.
- Evaluate which streets need alternate side parking rules in effect and slowly phase those restrictions out and replace with street cleaning restrictions.
- Where alternate side parking rules cannot be eliminated, pilot a lifting of those restrictions in the evening hours.
Parking permits are a good first step. But it only addresses one piece of the problem.
Collectively, these steps will a) restrict usage to residents and b) expand the number of available parking spots. This may not fully eliminate all parking concerns in such a densely populated area – but it will alleviate the issue and yield a huge net benefit over the current situation.
If you want to help move this plan forward – fill out this form to get in touch and support the campaign.