Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association, Inc.

PARKING MANAGEMENT

Feb 27, 2005

There is no telling if pressing parking problems are just endemic to Fox Canyon, or if they are a pandemic through out City Heights and the rest of the City, for that matter. All what is highly evident and really disturbing, is that coming home, after a long and tiring workday, is not the same that it used to be in years past. Figuring out the parking situation, or if you are going to be able to freely park in-front of your house or pull right in to your own driveway, or parking space, has become very stressing and intruding into the good quality of life. Gone are the little patches of green grass giving way to oil-leaking clunkers that have become the preferred front lawn ornament and statuary of the day, and the neighbors?’ insistence to cement down, everything around, to use every little and available inch of land to store broken-down junk cars, on private property, in preference to the parking of operable and usable commuting vehicles. Compounding the problem are apartment buildings that are so over-saturated with tenants who are very aggressive and take all available curb space and, in addition, double park their cars, blocking driveways and handicapped curb-cuts, with no regard, respect and/or consideration. Upper Auburn?’s known story of a resident owning seventeen (17) cars some of them for resale, all of them parked over 72 hours, and a neighbor ?“reserving parking space?” in front of her house with trash containers, in order that her husband could find available parking when returning home. Time to stop? Not quite, here?’s still more to tell! To be a successful mixed-use street, Euclid Avenue HAS to provide adequate and enough parking for residential/business uses to thrive side-by-side. Today, grand fathered-in auto repair businesses use blocks of available parking to bay and store excess vehicles awaiting repair and/or return. Such is the case from the University to Wightman Street blocks and the auto repair business on the west of Euclid, near University. In addition, parking is spilling badly in to the residential first blocks [east/west], from Euclid at an alarming rate. Tired is, association member, LOURDES GUZMAN of fighting driver?’s bad habits of making illegal U-turns right onto the curb, into her street trees; of picking up trash [up to three times a day], left behind by the parked on ?‘RED?’ drivers, right in front of her house. The blocking of her driveway, the honking of horns [day & night] and the parking on the curb when she is trying to grow a beautiful parkway has her mad and wanting to take some real action to solve the problem once and for all. Tired and frustrated is also member/business-owner PABLO RAMIREZ, Folklore Mexicano, the lack of proper and available parking is chok-ing off the life of his business; in addition, to paying ?½ of the parking ticket, every time that a customer gets one for parking ?“just for a little while?” on the yellow marked curb, right in front of his business. So the association seeking solutions to these problems [and after careful consideration at a public meeting] has requested two different evaluations [studies] from Parking Management:

1] "RESIDENTIAL [permit] ONLY PARKING", this evaluation will study the feasibility to limit parking to residents ?“ONLY?” in the Fox Canyon neighborhood [the entire service area], only.

2] "TIMED LIMIT PARKING" on Euclid Avenue from Dwight Street to University Avenue, only [on both sides of the street], time limit: one hour.

When evaluations are completed, Parking Management will let the association know the recommendations and procedures [steps] for accomplishment. Then your strong support and commitment is totally required to support the best solution.