“Parking For Democracy” Loses Its Spot

A controversial proposal to seek to increase participation in meetings at City Hall by making about 90 coveted metered spots on Orange, Elm, and Church streets free from to 6 to 9 p.m. on Monday through Thursday nights has gotten lost in the never-ending general debate about what to do with parking downtown.

(Update: Wednesday night, at a meeting of a city parking working group, the major players agreed to a compromise plan that will now move ahead for approval. Click here to read a story about that by the Register’s Mary O’Leary.)

A pilot project to implement the proposal, originally put forth by Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison and six of her colleagues, was supposed to have been presented by Traffic and Parking Director Doug Hausladen to the commissioners of the New Haven Traffic Authority at their most recent monthly meeting at 1 Union Ave. The matter was tabled, to be taken up again this month.

Hausladen, offering mea culpas that he had not been able to meet with Morrison as promised, had no pilot to offer.

At previous authority meetings Hausladen had expressed skepticism about the workability of the plan, suggesting that if spots were freed up, the area’s many restaurant workers would seize them long before would-be participants at aldermanic and other meetings arrive.

Morrison countered that the plan would work and Hausladen should develop a pilot.

Instead, Hausladen presented alternative options to the commissioners at the July meeting.

“We’ve communicated with the parking authority to create a procedure, a validation system” that would enable citizens wanting to participate in New Haven democracy to park free, with validation, at the public lot at Orange and Elm, he said.

Although the main thrust of her proposal is to increase democratic participation, Morrison had also heard from constituents that an absence of parking makes it difficult for library patrons to return books and use the main branch in the evenings.

Addressing that question, Hausladen said he had confirmed with Yale University that its lot on Temple Street near the Ives Main Branch Library is available for library patrons when the lot’s yellow barrier bar rises for the evening, usually around 4 p.m.

In general Hausladen re-expressed his discomfort with fee reduction or elimination of metered fees on the street.

When Hausladen shifted his discussion from the specific pilot proposal to his plans for a general revamping of parking downtown, Morrison, who was sitting nearby and not yet giving formal testimony, seemed visibly uncomfortable.

Hausladen reiterated that fee reduction for the meters, even in the service of democracy, is not the way to go. ​“I’d like to revamp the whole of downtown parking, and this will be part of it,” he said.

That revamping would consist of the creation of ​“premier zones” and ​“discount zones,” the latter being placed where, based on use, the alders are suggesting the parking be free during the meeting hours discussed.

“We do not believe in zero dollar parking on the street, because that will lead, as we discussed last week,” to problems of non-meeting-goers seizing the spots, and defeating the purpose of the pilot.

Commissioner Donald Walker interjected, ​“This is taking too long” and not responding to the immediate issue of Morrison’s proposal, Commissioner Donald Walker interjected.

“She’s not happy. I completely agree,” Hausladen said.

“My little topic is getting wrapped up in his [Hausladen’s] larger plan,” Morrison said when she was asked to speak.

She acknowledged, as she has in the past, that in the worst-case scenario the city could lose $33,000 from meter revenue max. But she reiterated that people are not using those spaces.

Hausladen told the commissioners that since his arrival the city revenue from parking meters has grown by $1 million, despite being his department being understaffed. Commissioners wanted to know if some of that money might be used to hire more staff to do the on-street parking studies, which Hausladen does himself, and other assignments so that the pace of action on Morrison’s pilot proposal might accelerate.

The city does not like to relinquish revenue from the general fund, Hausladen replied.

The commissioners urged him to be creative but also to respond to the legitimate proposal of the alders.

“We’ve had a lot of patience with this,” said the Commission Chairman Anthony Dawson. Dawson endorsed Commissioner Evelise Ribeiro’s suggestion that Hausladen and Morrison commit to sitting down and presenting some sort of concrete plan to respond to Morrison’s request for on-street meter parking relief to promote democracy.

Hausladen acknowledged that while he had responded by coming up with the use of a validation procedure and a parking lot for the library, he’d failed to do the on-street plan. He recommitted to having something concrete, worked out with Morrison, to bring to the commissioners next time.

“Let’s be clear we’re going to vote in August on this,” said Walker.

“Let’s make every effort on behalf of the alders, the police, and traffic commission. We’re all working together,” added Dawson.

To which Hausladen responded, ​“I hear you loud and clear, Mr. Chairman.”