Knightville parking plan riles business

The City Council again leans toward eliminating angled parking on Ocean Street

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council has circled the block on Knightville parking issues, arriving Monday back where it started four months ago with a plan to eliminate angled spaces in favor of parallel spots only.

That left one downtown merchant fuming Tuesday morning and suggesting that state may not have missed the mark last week when it denied certification to South Portland as a “business-friendly community.”

“I’m a great fan of South Portland, but I’m starting to get pretty discouraged at the way they treat the business people down here,” said Tom Smaha, owner of the Legion Square Market. “I was totally shocked at what they did. I left there wondering, what are they thinking? They have an opportunity to help the businesses down there, and they won’t take it.”

Monday’s council workshop, which showed a 4-3 majority in favor of replacing angled spaces on Ocean Street with parallel parking, was not the final word. City Manager Jim Gialey said the council must conduct a formal vote at a regular meeting, “within the next month or so.”

The fight over parking spaces began in February. Downtown merchants have known for more than a year about a $1.44 million utility upgrade taking place this summer. Despite the disruption to traffic in front of their businesses, they have unanimously supported the project, which will eliminate raw sewage overflow into Casco Bay by separating stormwater runoff from the sewer system. Water and gas lines are being upgraded at the same time, while the street is opened.

That work began in April and should wind up by September. When the street is rebuilt, sidewalks will be widened to better accommodate snowplows and to conform with disability requirements, while new LED streetlights will be installed.

However, while the basic plan was common knowledge, merchants say it was not until a Jan. 23 City Council workshop when they learned that parking could be realigned in the final phase of the project.

Instead of angled spots on the west side of Ocean Street, between C and E streets, a layout that’s been in place since the mid-1990s opening of the Casco Bay Bridge, the city said it would paint parallel spots on both sides of the street. In place of 19 angled spaces in front of the Smaha block, the plan called for nine parallel spots, with another six across the street, where there is currently no parking. There would be no net loss of spots, however, because parking would be extended up the street an additional 700 feet.

Downtown merchants quickly rose up to decry the plan. The issue was not so much the redistribution of parking as the realignment. Angled parking is perceived as “easy-in, easy-out.” Take that away, many business owners feared, and shoppers might give Knightville a miss, rather than trouble with a style of parking many people learn just long enough to pass a driver’s test.

“Many of my customers are older, they will not bother with that,” said Smaha.

“It could be the death knell for some businesses down there,” said Michael Drinan, owner of real estate firm Drinan Properties.

A month after the uprising, the city offered an alternative. It would retain the angled parking spaces, but, because of standards put in place after the current street design was created, those spots would have to be longer and angled at 45 degrees, instead of 60.

And therein was the catch. Given the sidewalk widening, the only way to accommodate the angled spaces was to limit Ocean Street to one lane of northbound traffic, said Dan Reilly, a project manager at the city’s contracted engineering firm, Sebago Technics.

According to Smaha, most downtown merchants presumed that after a series of March workshops on the topic, the one-way plan “was a done deal.” But at Monday’s council workshop, Gailey said no decision was ever reached.

Reassessing options brought out a dozen residents and merchants, and opinion on both sides.

“I don’t like that being a one-way street,” said B Street resident Caroline Hendry.

That, she said, would only create an incentive for traffic to divert to side streets to avoid driving all the way out to “the horn” at the intersection of Ocean Street and Waterman Drive. A member of the Planning Board, Hendry noted that the city’s comprehensive plan calls for efforts to reduce traffic on residential streets.

However, E Street resident Mitch Sturgeon, who moved to the area one year ago specifically because it is a mixed-use neighborhood, said it’s apparent to him that most downtown businesses operate on thin profit margins, something that will only be exacerbated by any parking trauma.

“My biggest concern is the health of the businesses in that part of town,” he said.

But Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis took a different view.

“I’m going to favor residents over business,” she said, claiming angled spots are dangerous to exit from into travel lanes. Parallel parking is preferred, she said, if only because that’s what the professionals at Sebago Technics recommend.

“I don’t need to redesign that,” she said. “I’m favoring quality of life. I’m favoring children out in the streets. I’m favoring bicycles, pedestrians, less traffic on our residential streets. I don’t think any business is going to go out of business because we changed the parking.”

Councilors Gerard Jalbert and Alan Livingston felt otherwise, favoring the one-way street with angled parking configuration.

Councilors Maxine Beecher and Tom Coward, along with Mayor Patti Smith, took De Angelis’ side. However, Coward said he “could be dissuaded either way by actual, physical evidence” proving the truth of “dire predictions on either side.” The deciding factor in his case, Coward said, is that it seems easier and less costly to adopt a one-way configuration than to undo it.

“We can’t unbuy all those one-way signs,” he said.

Coward and Beecher both suggested that parking be revisited as soon as six months after parallel parking is implemented. However, Gaily hoped the council would make a “go/no-go decision” on angled parking.

“I think we really need to make a decision that says, ‘This is what it is and this what we’re going to stick by,’” said Gailey. “We can’t just keep flipping back and forth on this issue. If we don’t put this to rest, it’s an issue that’ll plague us for the next three years.”

“Staff is asking the council for one way or the other and let’s live with it for a while,” said Gailey.

Smaha said Tuesday it’s too soon to know if merchants will rally against the parallel parking plan when the City Council taken up the issue next. However, he said, it’s clear to him that the vision of some city leaders for a “walkable” city has no basis in reality.

“They’re not thinking from the head of a businessperson,” he said. “They’re thinking about what’s going to look nice. They’re trying to make it a little yuppie village down there, where they can walk their dogs and drink their coffee.

“That’s all sweet and nice, but that doesn’t pay the bills,” said Smaha.