Public comments prompt changes
The public hearing on revisions to Cold Spring code chapters dealing with residential parking, vehicles and traffic was closed at the Wednesday (Oct. 25) meeting of the Village Board, moving the community a step closer to metered parking on Main Street and, the board hopes, less frustration for homeowners and tenants searching for a place to park.
When the hearing was opened at a meeting last week, Mayor Kathleen Foley underlined how long parking has been a thorny issue by reading from a New York Times article published 34 years ago that stated “many Cold Spring residents complain about the lack of curbside parking, especially on weekends when visitors take up the relatively few spots.”
Then-Mayor Antonia Garufi told the paper that the village was considering installing parking meters but had not yet figured out how to let residents park near their homes while limiting tourist parking.
Foley noted that the current proposed changes do not apply across the entire village. “This is Phase One, which includes most streets from the riverfront to Route 9D and between Northern Avenue and Wall Street,” she explained, adding that permits will not reserve specific spaces.
New York State has approved the addition of about 20 streets in the upper village to a residential parking program, which will be considered later.
On Wednesday, the board agreed on a number of revisions to the proposal:
- Each residential unit in the Phase One area can receive up two permits. The presence of a driveway will no longer be a factor.
- Each permit will cost $50. (In previous drafts, some permits cost $75.) Replacement stickers will cost $5.
- Metered parking on Main Street will be expanded beyond weekends and holidays to include Fridays.
Several steps remain before metered parking and residential permits can be implemented, including the installation of signage and payment kiosks and training Cold Spring police officers to use the enforcement technology.
Trustee Eliza Starbuck said the residential permits will be in place before metered parking. Foley added that, ideally, permits will be distributed by December and valid starting in January.
The board authorized the mayor to sign a contract with T2 Systems, which will provide the metered parking software.
While I applaud the revenue aspect of the Cold Spring parking plan — not metering scarce parking borders on fiscal malpractice — the full plan strikes me as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It does nothing to address the crushing congestion generated in no small part by the pursuit of parking. It is a game of parking musical chairs, the starting point of which is hundreds more players than chairs.
No matter how you allocate the parking in town, the fundamental issue of scarcity does not change. The concept of permit-only residential street parking is a fine theory, but if visitors already ignore fire hydrants and other no-parking zones, will a permit-only sign mean anything more?
If Cold Spring and the surrounding area are to get a handle on this congestion, we are going to have to think seriously and creatively about traffic flow and create options for visitors in designated lots. For instance, why is the old Marathon site, fenced off and vacant one block from Main Street, not used for parking? Access is awkward but that is the reality of Cold Spring.
Since Main Street is the only access to Metro-North and ends in what is effectively a cul de sac and can’t be widened, the only way to speed traffic on Main Street is to eliminate parking, not meter it. If that isn’t feasible, how about restricting parking to one side of Main Street using angled slots? The existing parallel parking on both sides multiplies congestion as drivers wait for cars attempting to park.
Signage directing cars to visitor parking, if it exists at all, must be improved. Half of the aimless driving is because no one knows where to go. Why not install electronic signs as you enter town, but well before Main Street, showing where designat-ed parking areas are and which are open or full? With current technology, data from payment information can be relayed to provide real-time updates on capacity. Any airport uses the technology. Beach towns use it. Will this cost money to implement? Of course. But it will also raise revenue.
Cold Spring is the destination for thousands of visitors every weekend and has been for years. I don’t know if these ideas are practical. But to do nothing, or nibble around the edges like the Cold Spring parking plan does means continuing a status quo which is unacceptable to just about everyone.
I don’t think there is a solution to the problem of parking in Cold Spring because the nature of the village cannot be altered to accommodate the numbers of visitors we have seen this summer, or those that will show up once the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail builds its boardwalk from Dockside Park northward.
Somehow, over the decades, a small factory village became a tourist attraction. Without brutal modification, which nobody wants, the village is simply stuck. To change it to handle the ridiculous level of tourists would likely solve the problem be-cause nobody would want to visit a village that consists mainly of parking meters and parking lots. Then they can all move to Nelsonville — maybe.