Thomas Breen Photo
Hausladen reporting to the Traffic Authority Tuesday evening.
You can park free downtown Thursday night.
The only small “price” you have to pay is to attend the Board of Alders Finance Committee meeting, or the regular monthly meeting of the New Haven Historic District Commission.
You can do that under the city’s six-month old pilot “Democracy Parking” program, which offers free validation of parking at the Park New Haven Orange and Elm Lot at 32 Elm St. weekdays after 5 p.m. for anyone attending a municipal public meeting.
About 200 “parking sessions,” or approximately 30 per month. have been validated so far under the program, which aims to greater ease and less fear of being ticketed if you participate in the city’s democratic processes.
That was the main news in a six-month update on the program that city Department of Transportation, Traffic & Parking Director Douglas Hausladen submitted Thursday night to the commissioners of the city’s Traffic Authority at their regular meeting.
Hausladen pronounced the Democracy Parking pilot thus far “good news.”
The program, which was introduced at the prompting of Dixwell Alder Jeannette Morrison, works like this: You are eager to give your two cents at the meeting — or you serve on a commission — and so you park at the Elm and Orange Lot, taking the dispensed parking ticket with you to City Hall or to the Hall of Records.
On your way in, or at the end of your meeting, you present the ticket to the guard at the security desk. He or she takes down your name, address, and meeting attended. Then you get a little bar-coded sticker. You place that sticker on the dispensed ticket you got at the lot. When you drive out, insert the stickerized ticket in the Elm and Orange Lot’s machine, and you leave without having to pay.
The only hitch in the operation thus far noted in Hausladen’s report: A number of validation stickers “were noted missing” at 200 Orange St.‘s security desk.
Because of that, all validation now takes place at only at the City Hall security desk. So if you have a meeting at the 200 Orange St. municipal government building, you may have to walk a block extra to get your validation.
Morrison said Wednesday that she is happy about the progress of the program thus far.
“You let your voice be heard” without getting a $20 parking ticket, she said.
She added that in addition to small signs announcing the program in English and Spanish, she would like to see larger sandwich board-type signs placed on sidewalks outside City Hall and 200 Orange.
Allan Appel Photo
Signage off city hall main lobby on the way to garage and restrooms.
During a two-week period in April, when Morrison was acting mayor while Mayor Toni Harp traveled in China, she sent out a press release about the parking for democracy initiative and received some TV coverage. During that time, she said, City Hall security staff reported a spike in people using the validation stickers.
“That’s why I’m so passionate to get those [sandwich board] signs out there, so people can know. We have a responsibility to our constituents to take away any barriers. You have a lot of people who still don’t know,” she said.
In addition to the validation at the Elm and Orange Lot, you can park free — no validation needed — at Yale University Lot 51 at Temple Street just above Elm, Monday through Friday after 5:30, if space is available.
Hausladen told the commissioners he will report more fully on the program at next month’s Traffic Authority meeting.