The Ukiah City Council this week delayed voting on making changes to a short section of West Stephenson Street downtown that would have removed a parking space and loading zone, as well as permanently opened it up to two-way traffic.
Public Works Director Tim Eriksen told the council at its Jan. 15 meeting that staff had tried temporarily allowing two-way traffic on the portion of West Stephenson Street between South Oak and South School streets over the holiday season to allow drivers to access certain parking spaces nearby.
“It was brought to the staff’s attention that when the ice rink is downtown, there’s no way to use the parking spaces on the east side of School Street if you’re heading northbound without making an illegal U-Turn or using private property to turn around,” said Eriksen, who explained in the staff report for the meeting that his staff “temporarily removed an on-street parking space to allow traffic to travel in both directions,” and that the “changes performed well over the holiday season.”
“We are now coming to the City Council to make that a permanent situation,” said Eriksen. “When we change anything about parking, my phone starts ringing fairly quickly, and I have not received any calls about this, and it’s been almost two months, so it seems to me that it’s not a big issue for folks.”
However, Stephan Oullette, the owner of the Mendocino Barkery, which is located directly across from the section of West Stephenson Street that would be changed, said he was concerned about losing that loading zone, but he was more concerned about pedestrian safety.
“There’s no clear pedestrian walkway (from the parking lot behind the Ukiah Valley Conference Center to the Alex R. Thomas Jr. Plaza), and folks are constantly walking on the street there to reach School Street,” said Oullette. “To have that narrow of a street be two-way full-time creates a hazard, and it will only be a matter of time before someone gets hurt.”
“It seems to me that it’s really only a problem when the ice rink is up, so could we make that a two-way street just during that time?” said Council member Jim Brown. “And then keep it one-way the rest of the year, because I do think it’s safer that way.”
Eriksen said that likely would be feasible, but Council member Maureen Mulheren said she worried about the confusion that would cause.
“Since there are many other events throughout the year in the plaza, if we make this decision, I think it should be a permanent one so people could be trained to use the sidewalk, as I know many people use the street,” said Mulheren, suggesting that perhaps the speed limit could be lowered to 15 mph, a speed bump could be added right before the parking lot, and “signage added telling people to use the sidewalk?”
“Because I didn’t have any complaints about this I kind of rolled this out thinking it was going to be very easy, because I felt like this was what everybody sort of wanted, but clearly that’s not the case,” Eriksen said. “If there are concerns, we can certainly do more analysis.”
“The property owner who spoke tonight is really the one property owner who had frontage along this area, and there may be some factors we can consider addressing in regards to pedestrians,” said City Manager Sage Sangiacomo, suggesting that the item be brought back to the City Council once the Public Works Department analyzes the situation more fully. “I think there might be an opportunity to work with the property owner to come up with a solution that will work for everybody.”
The City Council agreed to continue the item to a future meeting.
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January 18, 2020 at 06:20AM
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Changes to West Stephenson Street in Ukiah delayed - Ukiah Daily Journal
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