Submitted By
Jill Velan, Parking and Mobility Services Director
Agenda Item Title
Title
On-Street Parking for Austin Boulevard and Harlem Avenue including Adjacent Areas
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Overview
Overview
At the January 23, 2017 Special Meeting, the Board approved a monthly schedule of topics. May’s topic is a presentation of on-street parking for Austin Blvd and Harlem Avenue.
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Anticipated Future Actions/Commitments
Recommendation
On-Street Parking Regulations: Staff is recommending a standardization of daytime parking restrictions and eliminating the 2 hour parking limits on Austin Blvd. In addition overnight on-street permit parking zones should be standardized to have 11 pm - 6 am permit parking hours in all zones along Austin Blvd.
Technology: Staff is also recommending that the Village investigate a partnership with online parking technology applications (such as Spot Hero or Park Whiz) to provide a broader platform to assist private property owners to rent available parking spaces. In addition, the Village would facilitate educational seminars for private property owners, residents, and businesses parking topics such as leasing your available parking spaces.
Altering the overnight parking ban or creating a new “alternate-side of the streets” parking option, will require further board discussion at a subsequent meeting.
Body
Report
Board Discussions to Date
The Village Board Goals for 2016-2017 include revisiting the overall parking systems within Oak Park in a holistic manner and with consideration for neighborhoods and business districts in order to understand the impact on residents, visitors and employees in the community. As a part of this meeting, staff will review the recommended goals for this review and a proposed schedule.
The Board held their first Special Meeting on January 23, 2017. Generally the recommendations discussed and approved included parking restriction changes that would increase resident on-street overnight permit parking by adding 75 spaces. In addition, the recommendations include standardized on-street overnight permit parking hours in the Pleasant Business District and Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School area also referred to as the Y2, Y3, and Y4 Zone to 11:00 p.m. - 6:00 a.m. consistent with the “shared parking” concept used in other mixed use areas which has successfully allowed improved parking for business customers and residents during the evening hours. The Transportation Commission concurred with these recommendations.
Additionally, staff discussed in more general terms, how each of these Special Meeting sessions on Parking would be organized. The following Goals would be considered as each public parking system is reviewed and changes proposed:
• Parking Ordinances must be simple and user friendly (e.g. language is clear and concise)
• Parking Signage of all types must be standardized and more streamlined so that residents, visitors and employees in Oak Park are able to understand regulatory language that may be required and directional information is clear and concise.
• Parking Technology must support efficient parking administration and operation while also being customer service focused.
• Use the following Guiding Principles per each review: Sustainability, Public Safety, Customer Service
In order to facilitate a comprehensive review of the public parking system, staff recommended a schedule of monthly study sessions be established. In general, each individual session would seek consensus of the Village Board related to the parking policy with a final comprehensive ordinance approval scheduled at the conclusion of the study sessions. Similar to the review of the I-290 Reconstruction, the review of recommendations related to individual public parking policies will take multiple meetings and then comprehensive Board direction can be obtained.
Staff recommended the following Monthly Study Session Schedule:
January Pleasant Business District/South and Harlem Redevelopment project/Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School, including Recommendations from the Transportation Commission related to on-street resident parking (this is a time sensitive topic due to pending ground breaking by Lincoln Properties)
February Parking Technology Best Practices
March Parking Signage Recommendations
April On-Street Parking Austin Blvd & Harlem Avenue, including adjacent areas
May On-Street Parking North Avenue and Roosevelt Road, including adjacent areas
June Parking near and adjacent to Public Transit/Residential/Mixed Use Areas - Metra CTA Green Line, and CTA Blue Line
July Parking near and adjacent to Residential/Mixed Use Areas - Madison Street and Washington Blvd
August Parking near and adjacent to Residential or Mixed Use Areas - Chicago Avenue and Division Street
September Comprehensive Recommended Ordinance Amendments
While conducting the above area reviews, all of the diverse parking needs would be considered. For example, parking needs of single/multi-family homes, business districts, service providers, schools, parks, hospitals and public transit.
At the February 27, 2017 Special Board meeting, Dixon Resources Unlimited (Dixon) was hired by the Village to review the Village’s parking services, permit, vehicle stickers and citation systems to determine requirements for a Unified system that would improve the customer experience. Over the last few months Dixon has be reviewing processes that are shared between the Adjudication, Finance, Information Technology, Police, Public Works and Parking & Mobility Services Departments in an effort to develop a request for proposal that encompasses best practices for a new system.
As part of this process, Dixon presented to the Village Board different parking technologies and parking industry best practices that are currently being used by municipalities throughout the country.
At the March 20, 2017 Special Board meeting the Village Board approved a pilot project for a new consolidated on-street parking restriction sign design. As part of an effort to consolidate parking signage in Oak Park and improve understanding of parking restrictions staff has been researching ideas from around the country. Specifically, there are 10,000+ parking restriction signs posted throughout the Village. As part of the research a new sign design was discovered in New York City. This design is currently being piloted in ten cities throughout Australia, Canada and United States.
Based on comments received from Oak Park residents and businesses, staff believes starting a pilot project with this new sign design may prove successful. One idea that seems to be receiving a positive reaction, is a design by a woman named Nikki Sylianteng who is a former resident of Los Angeles and a current resident of Brooklyn. Sylianteng’s came up with an idea to change the traditional text-based design of parking regulation signage in a visual explanation that would answer two main questions: “Can I park here? And for how long?”.
This sign design consists of a parking schedule that shows all 24 hours for every day of the week. The times you can park are marked in green and the times you can not park are marked in red.
Currently there are several different iterations of the sign design being piloted in Columbus (OH), Fargo (ND), Los Angeles (CA), New Haven (CT), Washington (DC), Brisbane, Sydney, Montreal, and Vancouver.
It is important to note that in addition to a review of design of parking restriction signage, future Study Sessions will review regulations in order to consolidation/change restrictions in some areas of the Village to simply parking.
The Transportation Commission reviewed the consolidated sign design at their February 27, 2017 meeting and concurred with Staff’s recommendation. In addition the Commission recommended that areas to consider for running a pilot would be a couple streets within the Y2, Y3 or Y4 overnight parking zone area, an area with citation rates, or somewhere near mass transit such as South Blvd.
Special Meeting # 4 - Austin Blvd & Harlem
Recommendation for On Street Parking Regulations:
As a part of an effort to consolidate signage and improve understanding of parking restrictions staff has been researching the existing posted signs and regulations. For example, currently Austin Blvd has two layers of restrictions, making parking for residents and customers difficult:
1. Rush hour restrictions of “No Parking 7am-9am” and “No Parking 4pm-6pm”
2. “2 hour time limit” between 9am-4pm.
In addition, every overnight resident permit parking zone along Austin Blvd has various start and end times ranging from 8pm - 10am unique to a given block. Some areas have multiple start and end times even within the same zone. As with prior discussions staff recommends that all the overnight resident permit parking zones along Austin Blvd have a standardized time of 11pm-6am.
The Transportation Commission concurred with staff on these recommendations.
Technology Recommendations:
Staff has researched the opportunity to provide additional enclave (off-street) parking in the area and have determined that at Ontario and Austin there is an available parkway to add off-street parking spaces. In addition, there are several private property owners with parking lots/garages that could be pursued for off-street parking. Traditionally, the Village has license agreements for the use of spaces. However, staff is recommending that the Village investigate a partnership with online parking technology applications (such as Spot Hero or Park Whiz) to provide a broader platform to assist private property owners to rent available parking spaces. In addition, the Village would facilitate educational seminars for private property owners, residents, and businesses parking topics such as leasing your available parking spaces.
Currently, Harlem Avenue does not have any daytime parking restrictions and staff does not recommend adding any at this time. There is no Overnight Parking from 2:30-6am. There has been some requests from residents of multi-family dwellings looking for additional overnight spaces in the area. There are a number of private parking lots in the area that would be able to utilize the above mentioned parking technology to rent extra spaces to the general public. Staff will also review a parking area currently located on North Avenue for overnight opportunities as part of the next study session which encompasses North Avenue and Roosevelt Road.
The Transportation Commission concurred with staff on these recommendations.
Feedback from Transportation Commission & Residents
As part of this review process, staff meets with the Transportation Commission in advance of each Special Meeting with the Village Board. In addition, the Village website allows for comments regarding parking for the particular area scheduled for discussion one week in advance. Those comments are then emailed to the Village Board the day of the Special Meeting and a hard-copy is presented at the meeting.