Downtown parking ordinance revisions halfway to passage
Parking and traffic logically go hand in hand.
So rarely does any discussion of parking in downtown Greencastle not include the notion of removing truck traffic and other through traffic off the square somehow.
It happened again at the City Council’s recent February meeting.
Councilman Adam Cohen, alluding to a Jan. 19 Banner Graphic story detailing proposed changes to four city ordinances in regard to some aspect of parking, said he had received more comments than he usually gets via text, email and phone. Unfortunately, most of the comments weren’t about parking, they were about traffic.
“People don’t understand,” Cohen said, “we can’t stop the truck traffic on U.S. 231. We don’t own that road.
“I got a couple emails saying, ‘Why don’t we just route the trucks off that road.’ I know it’s confusing to people who owns what road, but we don’t own U.S. 231,” Cohen said.
Mayor Bill Dory concurred.
“It is under control of the state,” he explained.
“And there’s nothing we can do to change that,” Cohen continued. “We just don’t own that road, so there’s nothing we can do with that other than improve parking around it to make it better.”
Hence there likely will be no shifting of truck traffic out of the downtown via South Jackson Street in the near or even distant future.
And that’s nothing new.
Councilman Dave Murray told a story about his wife, Sue, when she was the mayor, going to see Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to see if redirecting traffic or building a bypass might be possible.
“And he (Daniels) said, ‘Absolutely no way,’” Councilman Murray said.
Mayor Dory recalled that just prior to Daniels becoming governor, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) did a corridor study that proposed some alternatives and offered a glimmer of hope.
“But that’s as far as that ever got,” Dory said. “But anytime I meet with INDOT, I never fail to bring up the fact how nice it would be to reroute traffic here in Greencastle.”
Among the parking changes in store for downtown Greencastle, will be pulling back parking along the north side of Washington Street to 65 feet east of the Indiana Street intersection, leaving just one parking space remaining to the west of the existing alley.
However, city officials are continuing to work with affected property owners about closing that alley entrance, which Mayor Dory deemed “not very safe.” Closing the alley off would add one additional space to the north side of Washington Street.
At the January Council meeting, Murray brought up the dangers created by the traffic/parking bottleneck, noting that one person had been hit recently, trying to make his way across Washington Street between the old site of Old National Bank and Starbucks.
Meanwhile, all it takes is for one westbound vehicle to pause to turn left at the stoplight and traffic backs up and nobody gets through the intersection because parking is currently permitted all the way to the corner.
Thus, removing a couple of parking spaces along the north side of Washington Street would allow traffic to flow past the left-turn artists.
Overall, four ordinances -- 2021-2, amending the list of city loading zones; 2021-3, regarding reserved handicap parking; 2021-4, amending the schedule of no-parking zones; and 2021-5, amending the schedule of limited parking zones -- were unanimously approved on first reading.
In short, the parking changes under consideration downtown include:
• Washington Street, north side, along Old National Bank – Removing one or two spaces at the Indiana Street end of the block (65 feet back). Also possibly closing the alley entrance to regain one space.
• Washington Street, from Indiana to Vine south side – Removing one space at the Vine Street end of the block for better sight distance.
• Walnut Street, from Indiana to Vine north side – Removing one regular parking space at the west end of the block, sliding the handicapped space 37 feet east to provide better turning radius for fire trucks.
• Walnut Street, from Indiana to Jackson – Moving parking from the north side of the street to the south side. This would add 3-5 spaces of on-street parking on Walnut, west of Indiana. Would still allow for one 60-foot-long loading zone on the north side of the street.
• Indiana Street -- Adding two handicap spaces along the west side of the street immediately north of the courthouse crosswalk.
• Vine Street parking lot -- Adding two spaces at the southwest corner of the lot and one at the northeast corner of the lot.
Previously, the city moved the two reserved fire department spaces from Indiana to Poplar to open up the two spaces along the front of BreadWorks. The city also added two 10-minute pick-up spaces on the north and east sides of the square.
Second and final reading for the ordinances is scheduled to come before the City Council at its March 12 meeting (7 p.m., City Hall).