Council mulls Ronan parking problems
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RONAN – Ronan City Council on June 8 directed Public Works Director Dan Miller to look into ways to stripe Main Street and possibly other downtown areas, after a citizen’s complaint about parking issues was met with unanimous agreement on the council that the parking situation is a bit dicey.
“I’ve had a couple of close calls on Main,” resident Ray Stevenson said. “You’ve got trucks on both sides, some of them have extended beds. It makes it really tough to get by if there is oncoming traffic. I’ve had a couple other people say the same thing, that they’ve had close calls.”
Mayor Kim Aipperspach and Miller said the town used to trade off striping service with the state’s highway department, but that in recent years the striping has been outsourced to contractors, which makes getting the services done free of charge a bit more difficult.
But even if Main Street is striped, Stevenson worries that people who park caddywhompus in unmarked diagonal spaces will still create a dangerous situation. He suggested putting marked diagonal parking on one side of the street and parallel parking on the other side.
Police Chief Ken Weaver said that kind of parking arrangement would be ideal, but might cause concern from businesses located along the street.
“It will be a touchy subject,” Weaver said. “They will say’ I’m for it, but have the parallel parking on the other side’. And the other side will say ‘I’m for it, but put the parallel parking over there.’ There will be some contention.”
Weaver said striping the road makes more sense than restricting oversized vehicles on Main Street, which was also discussed as a possibility. Weaver said there is a town ordinance that prohibits people from making a turn across oncoming traffic to park. It is also already illegal to cross a double yellow line to park, but at the moment, the lines are difficult to see because it’s been a couple of years since they were painted.
Weaver suggested the council take the parking issues into consideration as budgeting season encroaches.
