PDIDA: High Street Would Benefit From Parking Plan

Removing snow from High Street after a significant snowfall -- five inches or more -- is difficult and expensive when vehicles remain on the street or are trapped in their parking place as the result of snowfall amounts.

Ideally, vehicles would be moved from High Street to off-street parking facilities before the arrival of a major snow storm in and thus allow for the rapid removal of snow so as to allow the downtown area and the businesses that operate there to return to normal as quickly and simply as possible.

A viable solution to this problem is through the emergency utilization of municipal parking lots adjacent to High Street. The public will be given ample warning of an impending storm, from a weather source available to everyone; the orderly movement of cars from High street to municipal lots could be effected in advance of any winter storm.

Specific municipal lots would be assigned to the 100, 200, and 300 hundred blocks of High Street. Vehicles that park overnight on the 100 block of High Street are assigned to the parking lot across the tracks from the old train station.

In the 200 block, cars are assigned to the lot behind American Cash Traders and cars from the 300 block should park in the Evans Street lot.

Keep in mind, if a state of emergency is not declared, we cannot enforce towing.

It will be to the merchant and residents benefit to follow through with this plan without an official state of emergency declared.

Using the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service forecasts as the standard for predicting the approach of a snow storm and the estimated snowfall amounts, the borough will contact PDIDA and decide if the Snow Removal Plan will go into effect and give a time frame for it to start.

At that time, will notify the public -- via news outlets including and Pottstown Patch -- that their vehicle must be moved from the street to pre-assigned parking lots downtown 24 hours before the arrival of the storm.

Parking would be allowed on the street 12 hours after the end of a storm or when visual inspection confirms that all snow has been removed from High Street between York and Evans streets.

- Sheila Dugan, PDIDA Chairwoman