HOPKINS: No parking doesn't pass 'go'

Florence Gath has lived in the same four-apartment building on Young Street for 60 years, and has owned the building for the last 50. The 85-year-old woman, who uses a cane to get around, suddenly finds herself looking to fill three vacancies.

Gath’s tenants are all leaving because they can no longer park overnight on the street in front of their apartments. It’s a double-whammy for Mrs. Gath. Not only is she facing an immediate need to fill 75 percent of her apartment building, she’s also losing her primary source of income.

Her parking problem is shared by about one dozen residents along Young Street and nearby Scott Street. It wasn’t like this until just a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, efforts by the Common Council to resolve the problem are, simply, insufficient.

Many houses in this City of Tonawanda neighborhood tucked between Ellicott Creek and Delaware Street are not equipped with driveways, and there’s no room to install a driveway. This forces the homeowner or tenant to seek an alternative place to park, a concept foreign to most of us because we are fortunate enough to have our own driveway or a parking lot a few steps from the front door.

Most of the driveway-deprived residents opted to park on a strip of land running alongside Young Street. They freely did so for years. But that came to an abrupt end in July when city police began to ticket their cars for illegal parking. Turns out that the strip of land is a city right-of-way, and parking there is a no-no.

“My mother has never had a problem filling her building,” said Pat Iuvino. “It’s not fair or reasonable to ask someone to move in and not give them a place to park.”

The Common Council earlier this month decided to allow residents to park in the DPW lot on Fillmore Avenue. Residents balked at this, and for good reason: they don’t want to walk more than 350 yards through a dimly-lit area and over the creek to reach the safety of their homes.

City officials said that they can’t change the parking code for a few streets; if a change is made, it would have to be city-wide. How come? That’s how it’s always been done was the reply.

“Anything done for the community has to be for the public’s benefit, not a select few,” Council President Carleton Zeisz later explained to me. “I can take my car and park at the DPW,” he pointed out. True, but allowing overnight parking on Scott Street wouldn’t prevent a Utica Street resident from parking there, either.

Mayor Ron Pilozzi said changing the parking code could be perceived as “selective enforcement.” He also pointed out that a similar problem exists along Niagara Street, and the city did not back down from public pressure in that neighborhood. In one word, consistency.

The reasons are flimsy, and a solution to allow overnight parking during the summer from Council member Rick Davis, who admitted it wasn’t perfect, doesn’t solve the problem.

A quick Internet search revealed that overnight parking is permitted year-round on several streets in some of Cheektowaga’s oldest neighborhoods, near the Buffalo city line. All-night street parking is allowed on all or parts of eight streets in West Seneca, also near that town’s border with Buffalo. I’m guessing that’s an older neighborhood, too.

“We’ll certainly look at all options available to us,” Zeisz said when informed of the parking codes in those towns. He also suggested that Davis’s “summer” idea could be used as an experiment and lead to year-round permanence.

Let’s hope so. We elect our officials to solve problems and make tough decisions. The answer is simple: allow overnight parking on these streets. Yes, revising the parking code may equate to throwing raw meat at those who savor any opportunity to blast the mayor and council. However, a majority of residents will respect the decision.

By the way, the council voted Tuesday to install two traffic signals near the Broad Street and Fillmore Street playgrounds. Apparently they can make changes that aren’t city-wide after all.

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Kept waiting during Monday’s video tribute to Ted Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention for highlights from news coverage of the Chappaquiddick incident. Oh, well. Guess that’s water under the bridge.

John Hopkins is the night city editor of the Tonawanda News. His column will appear Thursdays. Contact him at john.hopkins@gnnewspaper.com.