Mere months after introducing metered parking to the downtown area, Elon’s town council has kept the momentum rolling with additional restrictions on parking along portions of four residential roadways.
In a series of unanimous decisions on Monday, the council agreed to forbid drivers from leaving their cars along the north side of Westview Drive, as well as some particularly congested stretches of Truitt, Courtland, and Forestview drives.
The council approved each of these measures after hearing a report from Elon’s police chief Kelly Blackwelder, who had been instructed to evaluate the parking conditions along each of these roads after a broader discussion about parking in June.
Most of Blackwelder’s report homed in on Truitt Drive, which runs through an area where the campus of the town’s eponymous university gives way to residential neighborhoods near Elon’s border with Burlington. The town’s police chief conceded that she and her officers have noticed a growing number of vehicles parked along one stretch of this roadway that lies between South Oak Avenue and Windsor Way.
Blackwelder went on to observe that people who live in this area have become increasingly vocal in their complaints about parked cars blocking their driveways and obstructing their view of the road. At the same time, she acknowledged that this street has served as a much-needed source of overflow parking for the Chabad Elon Jewish Student Center, which regularly marks the start of Shabbat with Friday night dinners at its Truitt Drive premises.
“We recognize that some of the heaviest traffic happens to be there on Friday night when we have a lot of parked cars on both sides,” she added. “Probably, my biggest concern is the amount of pedestrian traffic. If we had sidewalks, this wouldn’t even be a cause for conversation.”
Blackwelder ultimately told the council that she thinks the fairest thing to do under the circumstances is to ban all parking along this portion of Truitt Drive.
The police chief’s proposal drew immediate pushback from various members of the council. Councilman Steve Exum suggested various alternatives to an all-out ban, such as time-based restrictions and a prohibition on parking along one side of the road. Meanwhile, Elon’s mayor pro tem Monti Allison broached the idea of parking permits for residents in order to reduce the potential inconvenience that Blackwelder’s proposal might have on Truitt Drive’s homeowners.
Blackwelder said that, in her experience, a partial prohibition on parking simply ends up diverting vehicles to areas where the ban doesn’t apply. She added that parking permits and time-based restrictions might also discriminate against Chabad.
“I was asked to look at public safety,” the police chief went on to stress, “and not what inconveniences it would cause for homeowners.”
Elon’s mayor Emily Sharpe concurred with Blackwelder’s overall concerns about public safety along Truitt Drive. Yet, she also voiced some resistance to the police chief’s approach to this problem.
“I drive this road every day, and I have seen pedestrians eight wide with their backs to traffic,” the mayor added. “So, I agree that there is a safety concern…I’m just wondering if there’s a solution we’re just not thinking about…I see such wonderful solutions in other places. They’re able to do traffic calming and slowing with just a can of paint.”
As a temporary expedient, Sharpe suggested a more finely-tuned limit on parking within the four-block area where parked vehicles pose the biggest encumbrance.
At her behest, the council voted 5-to-0 to prohibit parking along both sides of Truitt Drive’s 100 and 400 blocks but to limit the ban to just the east side along the 200 and 300 blocks. Blackwelder indicated that, as a short-term measure, she saw nothing wrong with these restrictions.
“I’m willing to give it a shot and see if that resolves it,” the police chief insisted.
In addition to the mayor’s recommendation for Truitt Drive, the council also accepted Blackwelder’s proposals for parking limits on Westview and Forestview drives.
In the former case, the police chief called for a parking prohibition along the north side of Westview, which the council agreed to extend to both sides as the roadway as it nears the intersection with Williamson Avenue.
Blackwelder also recommended a ban on parking along the final 100 feet of Forestview’s approach to Westbrook Avenue. This recommendation also found favor with the town council.
Blackwelder saw no need for any parking restrictions along Courtland Drive. Allison, however, objected to the presence of parked vehicles near Courtland’s juncture with Pinedale Drive. At the mayor pro tem’s behest, the council agreed to extend the standard 20-foot “no parking” zone at this intersection to a length of 50 feet. This measure passed by the same margin of 5-to-0 as the council’s other parking-related decisions.
