Mayor: City Making Progress with Downtown Parking Plan

The City of Melrose is making progress with its downtown parking plan, according to Mayor Rob Dolan.

The city is working toward implementing recommendations identified in the Downtown Parking Report.

"It's a far better situation and the turnover is better than it's ever been. You can actually find parking in that area," Dolan said.

Dill's Court Improvements

The first project tackled by the city was revamping the Dill's Court parking lot located behind Shaw's Supermarket and Turner's Restaurant. By repaving and restriping the lot, nine parking spaces were added to it. Other improvements were made to the lot, including clearly marking handicapped spaces, adding crosswalks and improving drainage issues. 

Snow Removal Plan

The city has implemented a snow removal plan aimed at removing large snow piles from primary downtown municipal parking lots so there will be a consistent supply of parking spaces available year round, according to a city press statement.

"When you privatize trash, we now have the manpower to haul snow out of all our municipal parking lots," Dolan said. "We were losing probably 20 percent of our business district parking as a result of snow previously and the cost was prohibitive. Last year we were able to remove all snow and we'll be able to do so this year."

Added Time

A third measure taken by the city was increasing municipal parking time limits from two hours to three hours, according to the mayor. In October the Melrose Traffic Commission approved the time change, and funding is being put into place so new signs can be purchased and installed, he added.

"What we had was a hodgepodge of archaic regulations that really made no sense understanding the changing businesses in our downtown," he said. "Melrose used to be a place where there was a hardware store, there was a store where you got cards and paper and it was great...We have been able to regentrify our downtown into businesses that are now meeting the needs of residents in 2013, understanding and accepting that we are surrounded by megastores and malls."

The city, which will work with the parking clerk, Police Department and Chamber of Commerce, plans to make additional changes over the next several months, including establishing a new commercial permit program which would ask business owners to park further away from their respective stores to give customers the best available parking spots.

"I will never move on the ban of overnight parking in the City of Melrose," Dolan added. "I think it's one of the most important laws in this city in terms of planning, development, fighting illegal apartments, in management of crime, snowplow (operations) and pedestrian safety."

The city also intends to install new directional and informational signs, as well as creating parking map postcards for residents.