A simple solution to relieve the Elmwood Village Parking woes.

Great idea!

I completely agree, even if it looks in the pic like Ward is proposing a change to 2pm. Where are the council members on the idea? I'm calling mine (Rivera) today.

Call me crazy -- but does it seem to be that the majority of complaints -- albeit my complaints -- are that its not the parking rules that are in place so much as the sheer quantity of parking tickets that are written in these neighborhoods?

While it makes sense to have one side of the street open for most of the day during the winter (although I agree that two hours is probably fine), having these same hours during the summer is ridiculous. Street cleaners maybe come once a week, and it is not very labor intensive. To give the City 35 hours per week to clean one street is excessive.

I think that at the very least there would be two schedules: one for winter (keep the same hours as now if the Streets department simply cannot handle it), but come April 1st it would be the reduced hours. I would think demand for parking would be higher during this time so it should be a sensible compromise.

There is no parking problem. I live there. You just have to be willing to walk more than 5 feet to get to your destination. That being said, I support this idea, especially in the summer. But this is really about ticket revenue.

There is no parking problem. I live on Anderson and walk to everything. Also, there are (more often than not) available street spots for people to park at and walk to their destination.

there's also the parking benefit district, which buffalo has yet to try out:

http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/SmallChange.pdf

I think this is a good idea for non-winter, but agree with those who have mentioned leaving the restrictions in place for winter snow plowing. As a side-street resident, I am not confident that a 2-hour window is going be enough when it snows. And I don't place all blame on the streets department either. For those who are against the restrictions in place, how often is the one side of your street 100% clear on time (meaning, when the restricted time hits, it's clear and the plow can get through unencumbered)? It always takes people at least an hour or so of the restricted time period to move their vehicles. What happens, then, if the plow is ready at 9am but cannot go through right away? They move on, but if the window for plowing expires at 11, chances are that any streets that were missed just won't get plowed at all.

Sad when the city serves the cars, rather than the people who drive them.

Stagger the times. Some streets 9-11 other streets 1-3. In the summer it makes sense to apply it to only one day per week.

During winter, I agree with those who say reducing the alternate side parking from 7 hours to 2 hours sounds probably insufficient for time needed for snow plowing.

During non-winter months, the change to 9am-11am from 9am-4pm would be an improvement (somewhat consistent with what I've suggested on here) because it increases the number of hours during which it's okay to be on both sides...
however, it still leaves the 9am inconvenience in place for which there's no good reason.

As brownteeth noted in reply under my different suggested change to alternate side parking last week, each street's (maybe)-once-a-year cleaning is the only non-winter reason the city gives for making residents of some streets drop everything and move cars to the other side at certain days/times every week all year or face a $30 penalty any time they don't do it fast enough.

A better solution for streets like this would be what I had suggested -
leave the 7-hour alternate side parking rules in place during truly winter months to allow for plowing, but cancel them totally during non-winter months so people can park on both sides as they're allowed to anyway on weekends.
If such a street is lucky enough to get street cleaning, it won't be fully curb-to-curb at points where cars are on both sides. That won't be a big problem since rainstorms do the cleaning naturally.

That change would be have good effect for all 3 kinds of stakeholders.
1. commercial - customers during non-winter would benefit from more parking spaces without any real downsides (businesses benefit too, obviously),
2. residential - during non-winter people on those streets would no longer have to deal with the 9am move-the-car thing to deal 3x/week (which isn't a problem for those who always work traditional first shift hours, but not everyone always does),
3. city's streets dept crews - during winter would still have 7-hour window for plowing (which really helps everyone who uses those streets by making good plowing more likely).

I'd bet the reason The City wouldn't like the idea is less revenue from ticket fines. That's a very bad reason.

At what point will we stop continuously compensating for the convenience of the automobile?

At what point will people realize that this focus on parking is totally unnecessary? Buffalo is a dense and walkable city and it's about time people acted like it. Also, Elmwood has one of the city's best bus routes. Use it.

Jesus wouldn't drive, nor would Buddha, although they'd both be sporting some kick ass skinny jeans.

These ideas for better parking are too easy, and too inexpensive. Come up with something that costs more money to implement and maybe there will be progress. Maybe a few million dollars for a computerized GPS system in garbage trucks, street sweepers (?), parking enforcement trucks (why do these people drive inefficient pickup trucks anyway?) and snowplows, integrated with the City's video surveillance system and Steve Casey's City Hall video surveillance system. This exciting expenditure of our money could get City Hall excited about doing something.