Port considering parking metersBy Peter Mastrosimone Residents would park for free, under plan Members of Port Jefferson's Parking Evaluation Committee made their pitch for a managed parking system using modern meters before the Village Board Monday night, but the trustees said they are not yet ready to endorse the plan. The committee has been working for years on a way to better manage parking downtown with the goals of making the area more attractive to visitors and increasing revenue for the village. Merchants and government officials alike are concerned that the existing laissez-faire approach to parking, especially in the three big downtown lots, is counterproductive. People often park in four-hour spaces overnight because enforcement is weak; storeowners and their employees park in the most convenient spaces, leaving customers to walk farther than they may want to; and past attempts at shuttling employees downtown from more remote lots have failed because there was no disincentive to parking where they wished, according to the committee. The solution is to adopt the managed parking system offered by Central Parking, a large firm that released a study on parking in the village in 2003, committee member and longtime business owner Michael Mart told the board. 'If the village were to contract with Central Parking or another company, [the firm] would pay to install meters,' said Mart, who owns The Good Times Book Shop on East Main Street. 'They would run and operate the lots. The village would not have to hire anybody to do it.' And about $100,000 a year in meter money would flow into village coffers, he said, compared to the near-zero that haphazard enforcement of existing parking rules brings in now. 'As things progress and as the village becomes even more of a destination, then the village can use that money towards increasing our parking — when that time comes,' Mart added. Village residents would get stickers enabling them to continue parking for free, Mart and other committee members including the chairman, Trustee Brian Harty, noted. Others would park in spaces that would be numbered, take a ticket and pay a multi-meter machine in whichever lot they park in. The modern system might also be installed on some village streets, though village officials expect they would have to get the state Department of Transportation's permission to include Main Street because it is a state road. But first the Village Board has to approve the plan. Harty expressed his support, but other trustees said they first want to know if members of Port Jefferson's business community, including the Chamber of Commerce and Business Improvement District (BID), back the idea. 'I'd like to hear from the Chamber of Commerce and BID if the members support this,' Trustee Barbara Ransome said. 'I think Barbara's point is very well taken,' Trustee Larry Britt agreed. 'I think this board needs to know if the business community supports this.' Chamber President Samir Nizam and BID President Peter Sverd — both parking committee members who were present at Monday's meeting — assured the trustees that there is a 'consensus' among merchants that managed parking is the way to go. But they, Mart and Doug Norton, another local businessman on the panel, said they would formally present the plan to the merchant groups and then come back before the trustees. Sverd, however, added that the business community sees managed parking as a temporary solution and really wants to have a parking facility built downtown. The BID has been working on a plan to erect a parking garage, but has not yet finalized it, he said. Sverd declined to refer to the BID plan as a parking garage, using only the word 'facility' until Ransome pressed him to say if it would be a garage or not. It would be. Courtesy of www.PortJefferson.com |
- DemographicsPosted on: 2005-08-30Neighborhood type-Suburban
Population
9,382
Pop. density
2,176.8
Percent male
49.7%
Percent female
50.3%
Median age
40.3
People per household
2.5
Percent married
58.0%
Percent single
42.1%
Median household income
$75,480
Avg. income per capita
$38,862
