WESTPORT–The Department of Public Works announced today that they will begin installing new signage in downtown Westport on Monday, August 4, to reflect the revised parking time limits.
Following a July 9 vote by the Local Traffic Authority, on-street parking limits downtown will be reduced from three hours to two hours, effective daily from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
This change applies to on-street parking on:
- Main Street
- Elm Street
- Church Lane
- Bay Street
- Jesup Road
Town-owned parking lots are not affected and will retain their current 3-hour and all-day options.
This revision is part of a broader downtown strategy informed by BFJ Company parking study and public input through surveys and planning sessions.
To be clear here, BFJ were supposed to be hired to simply look at 3 parking areas and evaluate them for a parking structure.
This appropriation was RTM approved.
What happened after is that the town or DPIC took it upon themselves to ask BFJ – who are not merchants to study what they thought ( remember – not merchants) would be excuses or solutions to avoid building a parking structure. This as usual included of course the selectwomans ( who was paying BFJ, for something they were not supposed to use the appropriation for- a rubber stamp for their agenda) basically clueless perception it is of what works for a downtown.
At no point were any of the merchants even asked to give an opinion of what “we” who are the downtown, think might work.
Yes you’d think they’d have asked the opinion of the very folks running the businesses in the downtown. But no ! Apparantly our opinions were not important according to the folks running the administration who do not know how a retail or restaurant works.
The selectwomans opinion is that turnover is key… yes I guess it is key to making parking look like it is not a problem, the issue being it solves their perceived parking problem but it bankrupts the businesses.
The agenda of course also being to take away parking in the parker Harding lot, in order to add buffers for the apts across the river, and of course office blocks across the river which undoubtedly are going to soon be on the agenda to become apts..
make no mistake the beautifying of Parker Harding lot and library lot are for developers on the other side of the river. For their view.. to hide the lots for the big spenders overpaying for apts.
thing is the parking lots are existing.
The apts are not.
Businesses need parking.
They do not need 2 or even 3 hour parking.
They need certainly long enough parking for residents and visitors to eat and shop.
Right now it is an either or option.
Eat no time to shop, shop no time to eat.
Ludicrous and clueless understanding of businesses and what they require.
I am absolutely certain that Don O’Day and Andrea Moore will bring the same utterly ignorant agenda to the fore should they be elected.
We need a DPIC committee aporopriately stacked full of restaurant and store owners who will bring to the table what it takes to succeed in the downtown.
Only then will there be ideas put forth that work.
We do not need the CEO of the town to think that they have the slightest idea what it takes to succeed as a business in the downtown, while not paying any heed to the opinions of those very businesses.
Photo ops do not mean a thing.. ribbon cuttings are irrelevant.
Authoritarianism causes everything to go to hell in a hand basket.
Advocating for the Hamlet to rob commuters of their precious parking does not resonate.
We do not care if you or your cronies are investors..
we have a downtown and the job of the PZ and the selectman is to protect it not kill it by making parking impossible and creating a second town down the river.