There will be a public meeting in the Borough Council Chambers on Thursday October 22nd at 7:00 PM.
This will be the first in a series of public meetings to receive input from the public about the Borough’s parking system.
The purpose of this meeting will be twofold: first to present how the Parking Task Force determined the recommendations made to Council, and second to address comments from the public as to how we can enhance the Borough parking system.
This first meeting will be specific to the issue of parking permits for Main Street area residents and employees, to explore who should be eligible for them and how they would be managed. It was this subject that was the focus of many public comments during the ordinance adoption process.
Background.
In January of this year, the Mayor created a task force to review certain aspects of the Borough’s parking operations.
The reasons for this were based on the growing number of complaints received at Borough Hall relating to the lack of parking at peak periods.
The task force spent six (6) months reviewing previous parking surveys conducted by specialists and concluded that with the Borough’s growth, the parking system was not working to the Borough’s or user’s benefit.
The main findings were:
- The parking ordinance had no significant changes since 1984.
- Parking rates and times had not been changed in the past decade.
- Peak parking demand occurs after parking enforcement has finished for the day and on weekends.
The Task force made the following recommendations to the Borough Council:
- Parking rates should be increased incrementally
- Parking enforcement times should be increased
- Days of enforced parking should include Saturdays
These recommendations were accepted unanimously by the Borough Council. Following the acceptance of the report, the task force was asked to make the appropriate amendments to the Borough Code/Chapter 166 – the parking ordinance.
These amendments were made and presented to the Council for review and introduction on September 8th, and were adopted September 21st.
Following the adoption of the amended ordinance, the Mayor instructed the Task Force to review a number of additional items including the issuing of parking permits and the type of metering equipment and how it operates. This meeting is the first step in this process.