The Municipal Services Committee met 09/07/2023. One of the items they took up was a request from the Police Department to create a passenger loading and unloading area along the south side of College Avenue between Division Street and State Street by implementing a 15-minute time limit on parking from 11pm to 5am.
The requested change was an attempt to deal with traffic congestion that is currently occurring on College Avenue because of taxi and ride-share drivers stopping their cars in the middle of traffic in order to pick up patrons. The already existing traffic flow issues have been exacerbated by the recent lane changes on downtown College Avenue and the move from having 4 lanes (two in each direction) down to 3 lanes (one in each direction with a center turn lane).
The committee voted unanimously to approve the request.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
One member of the public, representing Sal’s Pizza which is located on the 400 block of College Avenue, spoke. She was in favor of the restrictions, but it sounded like her support of it stemmed from the belief that it would keep food trucks from being able to park there.
Limiting food truck parking options was not, however, the purpose of the parking restrictions. Rather, it was aimed at giving taxis and ride-share vehicles a place to pick up their patrons in a safer way that did not impeded traffic. Because right now, when those drivers were asked to move they often asked “Where else am I supposed to go?” The Police believed that simply having them go find an open spot which might be several blocks away from the person they were picking up was not ideal and might lead to intoxicated people deciding to simply drive themselves home.
The police believed that once a dedicated pickup spot was created that drivers would abide by the new rules.
Although Appleton Downtown Inc did not send a representative to speak at the meeting, they did submit a memo (which does not seem to have been attached to the minutes). Based on the discussion it sounded like they wanted the parking restrictions to be limited only to certain days. The Police Department did not think that was necessary because (a) the parking restrictions only went from 11PM to 5AM so would not affect most businesses and (b) it would be easier and clearer to people if the restrictions applied to every day.
The committee voted 4-0 to approve the proposed parking restrictions.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1115707&GUID=0ECB7747-201B-4768-9FB6-E58412B60D53
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