In Reading, tight squeeze on parking

Along with the greeting cards, candles, and pottery she has sold at the Hitching Post gift shop for the past 12 years, Leslie Leahy has started offering a new service: advice on parking amid the confusion of a huge downtown reconstruction project.

"I've been sending out regular e-mails explaining where to find parking," she said, "because people were coming into town and they didn't know where to go."

The $5.49 million state-funded project, which started in March after more than a decade of planning, will overhaul Main Street in an effort to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians and maximize on-street parking spaces, while providing a facelift for the business district with decorative street signs, new curbs, and sidewalks.

"I know a lot of people were avoiding the area at the height of the construction," she added, "and I think some of them still are."

Reading officials, using a $50,000 grant from the state, hired a Boston consulting firm in July to develop a solution for the parking squeeze, which has primarily affected business owners and downtown employees. They have struggled to find parking since the town, hoping to generate more turnover on the 1,500 spaces for customers, implemented two-hour limits.

The issue is "something that you sort of hear about chronically," said Town Manager Peter Hechenbleikner, who organized a pair of recent public meetings with the consultant, Jason Schreiber of Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates. Residents have been asked to complete an online survey of parking activity and preferences.

Building a parking garage in downtown Reading remains a possibility, but Schreiber said construction costs could start as high as $20,000 per space.

"Plenty of communities do this," he said, "and I think part of our charge is to help you evaluate the trade-off points compared to possible alternative solutions, at least in the short-term."

The study will survey how parking is used now and provide recommendations to the town for making the most out of the existing infrastructure "in a comprehensive fashion, not just as a bunch of individual parking lots and businesses, but actually as somewhat of a shared supply," he told a crowd of more than two dozen at an Oct. 30 meeting.

An estimated 5,200 employees work within a mile of the downtown district, and another 32,000 live within 2 miles, according to the Downtown Reading Market Assessment and Business District Composition Analysis, which was compiled last year by town officials and representatives from the business community.

Peter Simms, who has owned Simms Jewelers on Main Street for 32 years, said business has taken a financial hit since the reconstruction project began but other factors played a role.

"I think it's been slow because the economy has been slow, and that's happening right across the board," he said.

Irene Collins, executive director of the Reading-North Reading Chamber of Commerce, echoed his sentiment.

"The construction project has put a hindrance on the parking situation, but you've got to take the good with the bad," said Collins, who has worked as a liaison between businesses and town officials during construction. "You put it all together and the small mom-and-pop shops just aren't surviving right now. It's just very difficult for them to stay in business."

City officials in Medford have also been faced with recent public parking issues, which have been attributed to a lack of consistent enforcement of the various regulations.

The city does not have a parking enforcement officer, and an advisory committee has been formed to examine the laws of neighboring communities to recommend changes for next year.

In Reading, Simms serves as president of a steering committee of town officials and local merchants who helped put the reconstruction project in motion.

"Overall, people are pretty excited about it," he said last week. "Long-term, it's going to be an improvement, but in the short-term it's obviously a hassle."

The daytime parking crunch hasn't affected where Simms leaves his car. He said the shop has private space behind the building, and he rents one space across the street from the town for $360 a year.

While Reading has a part-time parking enforcement officer, Reading Chief of Police James W. Cormier maintains that there has "not been a dramatic increase" in citations issued since the two-hour time limit was put in place.

"We understand that people spend some time downtown, and we're not sitting there with a stop watch," Cormier said. "The parking enforcement officer understands the intent of the regulations and we try to enforce them based on that intent."

Richard Thompson is at thompjourn@gmail.com.