Having a parking program acknowledges that cars have a major impact on city life. We design streets to handle various flows of traffic at optimal speeds.
Too bad we never seem to be able to get enough traffic lanes to keep things moving smoothly. When all those cars get home, they park somewhere. Sometimes that’s a problem.
Knowing how to solve that problem on your street is contained in Riverside’s New Parking Program Details. See links below.
Transportation is a part of our daily lives. It’s important that it works well for everyone. For those who remember the series of conversations with UCR and the City about how catering to cars, particularly at student rental units, caused the first neighborhood wide restricted parking opt-in zone to be created.
This basically leaves it to the neighbors to discuss and agree on what if any parking restrictions they might want to have posted on their streets. That included days, times, etc.
Our Neighborhood Specific Plan addressed these concerns as documented in the Circulation Element. It’s worth a review.
Watkins Drive neighbors immediately banned day time parking. The City posted signs and the problem was solved. That’s how it was crafted to work. It was resident friendly and FREE,
After all, we the residents are the impacted parties. Charging residents for permits is pennywise and pound foolish. Neighbors coming together to solve their problem shouldn’t be penalized for doing so.
It’s as if no one saw a campus growing to 23,000 wouldn’t have an impact. Cars in traffic, cars parked on our streets and in our driveways.
UCR has been working to reduce on campus parking by banning freshman from parking on campus unless necessary for work or care giving duties.
They are also building a Mobility Hub on camps to integrate multi modes of transportation which will help reduce car trips considerably. Bus runs every 15 minutes, some with express stops will keep ridership numbers rising.
See also: The 10 Best Car Sharing Programs In the US
RUSD is proposing a STEM High School on campus. This is going to cause a major increase in the already dense daily traffic volume at peak times.
Transportation will continue to impact our daily lives. It’s in our best interests to be paying attention to what’s being proposed for our neighborhood.
Check out the New Parking Program details. The devil’s in the details but here are some relevant public record resources: Traffic Review Board Minutes, Granfathered Permit Letters, Permit Issuance Letter, Council Presentation, Council Report
Don’t be shy about asking questions or sharing comments with your Councilman and city staff.
Community members, just a quick head’s up about a series of questions the City of Riverside will be posing to residents in the next four weeks regarding parking in the downtown area.