At Thursday’s Selectmen meeting, Deputy Chief Kraig Gray, who runs the parking services for the town, gave an update on a survey and a pilot program for 15-minute parking spaces in the Amogerone Lot outside the US Post Office.
“People don’t improperly park for extended periods of time. It’s usually for a brief moment,” Gray said. “Just because, ‘I’m going to take the risk of going into this store for 5 or 10 minutes, and get my goods or wares, and leave.'”
The 15 minute parking lot spots are also ideal for a quick trip for take-out food from eateries including Falafel Taco, to pick up cookies at Black Forest Bakery, make a deposit at TD Bank, pick up a prescription at CVS or Greenwich Pharmacy, etc.
“Twofold for the study was to see if we could satisfy the customers going into the post office and also reduce or eliminate the amount of improper parking that was taking place in that area,” Gray said. “We’re received a lot of complaints at the fire hydrants and crosswalks there, and double parkers in that area.”
He said in addition to the citizen survey, the parking services supervisor checked in with merchants and asked anecdotally how the lot was working for them.
In addition to the online survey, parking services created a flyer they put on cars.
Deputy Chief Gray thanked the town’s IT department for creating the QR code people used for feedback.
Gray said 273 Greenwich residents and 17 non-residents logged in to take the online survey. He said 86% of respondents who used the lot said the 15 minute spots were useful to them. The 14% who said the spots were not useful made comments including that 15 minutes wasn’t enough time if, for example, there was a long line at the post office.
“No one said turn it back to the way it was previously,” he added.
There was some discussion with the selectmen about whether 30 minutes might be a better amount of time for a short errand.
Of course, 30 minutes slows the turnover of those spots by double.
Still, DC Gray said enforcing the quick 15 minute turnover took parking enforcement manpower that would otherwise be spent in other areas.
First Selectman Fred Camillo said a mix of 2 hour spots and 15 minute spots created a balance.
“A lot of us like to walk, but there are some people who can’t walk, and they need to be close by for a few minutes,” Camillo said.
The Selectmen said they would be happy to consider adding more 15 minute parking spots on the bottom of the Avenue.
The item was a first read, so the Selectmen did not vote on making the spots permanent. The selectmen said they are open to public feedback, and would vote on whether to make the 15 minute spots permanent at a future meeting.