The city of Oneonta’s Quality of Life and Infrastructure Committee discussed Dietz Street parking lot evaluation recommendations, including eliminating two spots on Main Street near the Dietz Street Lofts, on Monday, Jan. 6.
City Public Works Director Chris Yacobucci recommended eliminating two parking spots on Main Street in order to improve sight distance, based on an evaluation using state DOT standards incorporating traffic speed and the slope of the road.
The two spots are located on either side of the parking lot exit near the Hartwick College Baking Innovation Lab on the south end of the building.
“It has been our policy not to do parking restrictions on driveways in the city,” Yacobucci said. “This evaluation we did is typically for intersections.”
City Administrator Greg Mattice said that based on the stopping site distance, there needs to be one parked car on either side of the driveway to have a full stop and sight distance.
“DOT uses this in rural highway scenarios,” Mattice said. “It’s really not designed for cities as much as rural situations, but it’s kind of the standard tool that we have to use … People’s real experiences, their perceptions, are valid, when you have people complaining about an area. You don’t have people calling to complain about every driveway in the city.”
Concerns about pedestrian safety and ADA compliance were raised, with plans to install an ADA crossing at the intersection of Wall and Dietz streets.
The Dietz Street parking lot has sufficient handicapped accessible parking, Yacobucci said. There are six designated handicapped accessible spots out of about 150 spots total.
“We could do a more detailed study and count of how often those spots are occupied throughout different times of the day,” Mattice said. “We haven’t done that, collected enough data on that. We could do more of that.”
West End resident Moira Beach said that as a handicapped person, she wouldn’t use the handicapped spots in the Dietz Street lot to visit Main Street.
“I crossed my fingers there’s one on Main Street,” she said.
The committee advanced the parking lot evaluation recommendations to a vote of the full council at a future date, not for Tuesday’s meeting.
Other business
In other business, the committee considered incorporating Buena Vista Avenue into the city’s maintenance, addressing drainage issues raised by Beach on behalf of her and other residents.
The committee also debated increasing parking fines to deter violations and improving bike lanes and pedestrian safety. A study on potential four-way stops at East Street and Bugbee Road was proposed to address speeding concerns.