The council voted 5-0 (Mayor Todd Webster was involved with legislative matters in Austin and Mayor Pro Tem Damon Fogley is on vacation in Southeast Asia) to reject a proposed ordinance designed to regulate parking in neighborhoods adjacent to the Lehman campus. The ordinance involved an admittedly convoluted permitting system by which only automobiles bearing permits issued to residents by the Kyle Police Department would be allowed to park on the designated residential streets.
According to council member Daphne Tenorio, whose district includes the school and the residential neighborhood, citizens concerned about automobiles driven by students clogging their streets wanted the City to install signage that would prohibit such parking. The problem with the signage idea, however, as Police Chief Jeff Barnett pointed out, is the streets are not the property of the residents; they belong to the City, which means any "no parking" signs on those streets must apply equally to everyone, even the residents.
And, although no one on the council mentioned this, the proposed solution to the problem did absolutely nothing to address its root causes. Barnett told the council the students were parking in the neighborhoods instead of the school’s "ample" parking lot not because of the price the school charges students for parking on campus ($25/per semester, $50/school year), or because they were trying to hide the fact their vehicle was uninsured or that the student did not have a valid driver’s license. Barnett said officers interviewed students walking to and from their off-campus-parked cars and "they actually said it was to avoid the afternoon traffic jams so they could get to their afternoon job and to get home and do things. So they were parking in whichever neighborhood that provided them the easiest access to get to their four o’clock or four-thirty after-school jobs. We all know that’s a very congested area when school lets out."
At the risk of seeming overly simplistic here, it appears that addressing that congestion problem could go a long way to solving the parking issues.
So, after giving this admittedly no more than just a couple of hours of casual thought, here are six steps I think the City could take to alleviate these problems.
Step 1: Remove jurisdiction and oversight of the city’s streets from the Public Works Department and create a separate "Mobility and Street Services" Department, the head of which is appointed by and answerable directly to the city manager. The city is growing and with that growth comes many additions to the city’s street inventory and the need for additional street planning. There exists in Kyle today a growing need for a department that is exclusively responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of the City's mobility infrastructure in the City's right-of-way. To add some emphasis to the importance the city council places on streets, last night’s discussion of a proposed three-party agreement involving the development of Pecan Woods focused exclusively on the quality of the streets to be located there. For some unknown reason, the Police Department has been given the responsibility of coming up with ordinances designed to solve such issues as where and how to erect parking signs as well as how to regulate parking. These are administrative issues, not law enforcement concerns (at least, not until such policies/ordinances are actually on the books). The problems of traffic congestion need to be addressed by engineers trained to deal with mobility issues and these engineers should be staff members of a Mobility and Streets Department that can deal with these and the myriad of other needs revolving around the city’s mobility infrastructure.
Step 2: Quit thinking in terms of "either/or" and realize that addressing neighborhood parking, not only in the Steeplechase subdivision adjacent to Lehman, but in residential areas throughout the city, might need to be addressed with a combination of solutions, involving but not limited to, both permitting and signage. In fact, the city should quit thinking of terms of addressing needs such as this on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, but come up with solutions that will solve identical problems wherever and whenever they might arise — address the problems as city-wide concerns, not just individual neighborhood ones.
Step 3: KISS. If the city sees the need to implement some form of residential permit parking, then Keep It Simple, Stupid. If residents of a neighborhood are requesting relief from outsiders parking on their streets and a quick and simple study (one or two drive-bys should do the trick) by the Mobility and Street Services Department confirms action should be taken, initiate a parking permit policy by which all any resident has to do is call the Streets Department and request parking permits. The City then mails a maximum of four parking stickers, which can be affixed to a car’s windshield either immediately above or below the registration sticker, and two hanging permits which can be given to visitors to attach when needed to their rear-view mirrors. These stickers/permits are good for the life of the car — they do not have to be renewed. If a resident purchases a new or an additional automobile, he simply calls the city requesting another sticker and the city mails it to that address. It is no problem for the city to cross-reference the address in question to ensure it’s on an eligible street.
Step 4: Post a sign at the end of every block where parking permits are required that say "On-street parking by permit only."
Step 5: Make enforcement simple as well. If a resident of a street where permits are required for on-street parking believes a significant number of cars without permits are parking, only then involve the KPD. Call a special hot-line to report the problem so that a dispatcher can notify a nearby unit to drive to the neighborhood and, if necessary, begin writing parking citations.
Step 6: Give the Mobility and Street Services Department the assignment of solving major congestion issues wherever, whenever and however they occur in the City and that includes those mobility problems that stem from railroad crossings as well as schools, shopping areas, etc.
I’m not saying the above outlined steps are THE solution to the Lehman/residential or other potential neighborhood parking issues, only one possible solution. I’m always open to other suggestions.
Other newsworthy events during last night’s council meeting:
- In the absence of both the mayor and the mayor pro tem, council member Shane Arabie chaired the meeting and moved items along expertly, efficiently and expeditiously. In fact, the entire meeting lasted only two hours and eight minutes and slightly more than a third of that time — 43 minutes — was consumed by an executive session.
- Of the 14 votes taken during the session, only one was not unanimous. Tenorio voted against an item she pulled from the consent agenda for a $100,000 reimbursement to Union Pacific Railroad to cover the costs of engineering studies involved in the creation of four rail crossing quiet zones in the city.
- It was announced that the Plum Creek Development Partners, Ltd, have sold the Plum Creek Golf Course to a limited partnership based in Corpus Christi called PC Golf Partners. A quick Google search on the new owners proved fruitless.
- Four acres of land located between the La Quinta on I-35 and Windy Hill Road was rezoned from warehouse to retail services.
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