bim tells us that City Council moved toward tighter parking regulations around UVa at their meeting last night, looking to pass a law that would leave parking regulations up the residents of each street and extend the restricted hours to 12am-7pm. Council also approved the $88.8M budget for the 2002-2003 fiscal year and raised the cost of trash stickers by 25%, to $1 per 32-gallon container. Jake Mooney has the story in today’s Progress.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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To keep it a neighborhood, the parking restrictions probably are a necessity so that residents and their guests can park around their own homes. At the rate UVa is expanding, Ruckersville may be next in line for parking permits. Does Albemarle have any of these restrictions in any county neighborhoods? The county is becoming more like the city every day in its density, politics, etc.
As a resident of 13th Street NW, I’m very concerned to hear this. Currently I’m able to park in one of several restricted areas around my apartment because I get home from work a little after 5 and leave before 8 every morning; currently, the restriction is two hours per block between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. If those hours are extended, where the hell am I going to park? This is nothing but an easy way for the city to milk more money out of students and residents of the areas surrounding the University. I mean, they’ve gotta pay for those fancy PDA’s the ticket cops are toting around nowadays somehow, right?
As a resident of the area, wouldn’t you get a parking permit for your car and maybe a few extras for guests? I agree with you though that the new hours seem crazy, or designed by people who do not operate on normal schedules or even care how other people choose to live their lives.
If this is going to happen, it has to protect residents, not inconvenience them along with everyone else.
Can’t the city devise better hours to keep inconvenience to a bare minimum for residents and visitors? Are not resident passes easy to get and guest passes easy to give (or rent)?
Actually, this was only brought up bc residents of those specific neighborhoods expressed the desire to have permit parking.
Do most (some, any) landlords provide adequate parking for the tenants they rent to in the university neighborhoods? Is the city penalizing the poor tenant or do most people who live and rent in those neighborhoods want the protection that city parking restrictions might provide them if they are adequately structured with reasonable (as opposed to these) hours?
Most newer apartment buildings, I think, have adequate parking on-site and off-street. But the older (pre-1980’s) apartment buildings and houses are sorely hurting for parking. As and undergrad, I lived in a townhouse on Brandon Ave. (off JPA at the Student Health Center), and we had two parking spots in the driveway to split between four guys in the house. Some townhouses had up to six people and just two spots. Everybody else had to park on the street. Where I am now, the apartment complex has 18 one-bedroom units and 9 parking spaces in the parking lot (which are an additional $30 a month and for which I’ve been on the waiting list for over a year). There are five unrestricted on-street spots directly in front of the building, but those are dominated by residents of the many houses on Wertland (which are also short on parking) who switch off with roommates. It’s not usually a problem to find a spot in the two-hour spots, but if those hours are changed and residents aren’t provided with some sort of ticket-proofing, there’s something seriously wrong.
I really hope I’m not coming off as whiny here. That’s not at all my intention. But parking (and the hundreds of dollars in parking tickets I’ve had to pay over the past two years) is a major sore spot for me.
No, not whiney. Thank you. This is what I feared is the case, in which case how does the city solve anything for renters by extending permit parking?
Regretfully, I don’t think the city really gives a damn about residents in this area. For the most part they’re either students or relatively transient individuals with little to no involvement in local government, and as such are a ripe market for council, and by extension the police, to swindle.
A couple instances which have cemented this perception for me: Thirteenth Street off Main Street (where the Red Roof Inn is) had forever been a one-way street, with most of the parking on the left (wrong) side of the street. Then one day, without warning, a couple one-way signs were taken down, a new stop sign was put up, and voila–it’s a two-way street, and everybody’s parked on the wrong side of the road all of a sudden! Those of us who had lived here forever thought nothing of parking just the same way we always had, and were greeted with parking tickets. Similaryly, the same block of 12th street had been a one-way street with parking on one side. When the road was changed to a two-way with no parking, I happened to have my car parked there. Working on the Corner at the time, and thus using my car only every once in a while to go to the grocery store or run some other errands, I found four tickets when I finally had to use the car again. There had been no signs indicating an imminent change in either case, and the people who would be affected by such changes were the residents who follow the status quo unless there is some notice of change. Both of these happened within a couple months of each other in the fall of 2000.
I would be very much in favor of permit parking in the neighborhood (even though I’ll only be here for another three months and thus have moved out before any changes take place), and I would definitely shell out a few bucks every month if I could guarantee that I would have a parking space every day when I came home from work. But the city has not shown any indication that they want to do anything more than milk the areas around UVa for each and every penny they can. And the way to do that is to do just what they’re talking about doing: tightening restrictions and writing more tickets.
In Alexandria, Richmond and elsewhere they combine two hour parking with all-day parking for residents. The signs say something like “two hours this block or purple zone sticker.”
Jock Yellott proposed that for C’ville some time ago but the business community quashed the idea. What do people think?
I have an slightly unrelated question about parking. In front of the University Baptist Church, there are 2 handicapped spaces. Back last fall through the winter, every day a big old truck (memorable for the Harleys for George Allen bumper sticker) would park in the morning and stay there all day from about 8:30 to 5:00.
My question is this: Does handicapped spaces have a free all day parking space or do they follow under the rule of 2 hours. I don’t have an opinion either way but perhaps those spots in popular areas might have a time limitation of more than 2 hours but less than all day/night parking.