I promised in the aftermath of an article, A New Angle for Loomis Street, that I would be using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gain supplementary information about the unexpected move of putting angle parking in on the south side of Loomis Street between James and Rath.  

The first indication was a DDA subcommittee reporting that angle parking in front of the Bookmark was 'discussed' in the minutes of the 9-10-2018 DDA meeting.  Without any warning, the parking was restriped by the City DPW in that block to go from parallel to angle parking, gaining four parking spaces in the process.  Some people welcomed the change, some were worried about safety issues, some were wondering why it wasn't vetted to the public, others were withholding or soft on their opinions.  

People like me were doing all four.  When done right, angle parking can create parking spots and be reasonably safe.  This move added 33% more spaces without introducing the feared reverse angle parking.  It did, however, make the street more akin to parking than traveling, as the width of the street went from 35.6% used for parking to 53.3%.  Angle parking also requires more width for the 'pull out' lane, so there was a question whether the street was wide enough.  It does unbalance the street profile in a way which might cause problems with traffic.

I did some of my own research, but I also sent this following FOIA request to the City later on the day of the change:  

"The Temporary Traffic Control Order [TCO] issued by the traffic engineer and all documentation (traffic studies, accepted engineering practices, MDOT, DDA, and/or Traffic Engineer Barnett communications) regarding this change of parking on [the south side of Loomis Street between Rath and James]."

I felt they might have done a bit of research or a lot of communications when they sent me a response five business days later saying they needed to extend the period to respond by ten days, as they can through FOIA but rarely invoke except when there may be a lot of records disersed among multiple departments.  

But that wasn't the case.  When I received the FOIA response yesterday, there was only three pages of records:  a temporary TCO, the talking points Interim City Manager Steve Brock used at the Sept. 24 meeting, and a diagram.  This was the TCO:  

Oddly enough, the lengths of time for parking which would be discussed six days later by Steve Brock were not included, nor were the angles of parking declared, which can range anywhere between 40 degrees and 90 degrees.  The signs declaring which spots were 2 hour and which were 8 hour were placed without the traffic engineers (Chief Barnett's) explicit permission via the order.

As noted this was offered at the last council meeting without any kind of defining of the 'many sources' used to come to this conclusion; it probably means that they posted it on their Facebook page after it was done and heard mostly positive comments since 'negative people' always get thrown off that page.  The last record was this simple diagram:

This took me aback for a couple of reasons.  First, the diagram was not showing a type of street parking but parking inside a parking garage, that's why the arrows are where they're at and the 18 ft. distance from the wall is shown.  The difference between the two types of parking is significant.  Second, the angle presented is 30 degrees in this garage, rather different from the 50 degrees used on Loomis, as well as different widths of the stalls.  

This diagram appears to be the extent of Chief Barnett's research on the topic, the extent of the traffic studies, accepted engineering practices, and other justifications as to why this would work on this street.  LPD Chief Mark Barnett did not establish this parking change with any recognized rationale; the absence of any supportive traffic engineering records or studies shows that.  The absence of certain public records in a FOIA response is often more enlightening than what's included.

So let me help their situation.  The angle that was eventually striped was just under 40 degrees, this is a recognized angle in the traffic engineer's charts that should have been used here, I include this chart from a manual I found that describes angle parking guidelines for 'rarely' used local streets:

The angle newly painted on Loomis is effectively the top angle, Loomis is a two-way street with (currently) an angle/parallel layout.  You should see the minimum width of the street needs to be 44 feet.  The street happens to be 45 ft. wide, so this striping can work.  However, if we used the diagram showing a 60 degree (90-30) angle entrance, the diagram they used to figure out this restriping, the street would need to be 48 ft. wide-- it wouldn't be up to engineering standards.

Somebody involved in this process may have recognized the 60 degree angle would need to be smaller to work in this instance, it doesn't look like it was the chief, who doubles as Ludington's traffic engineer.  It's fortunate for all that they did.  

In seventy odd days, this new layout will be judged.  If the crash stats for that area doesn't spike in that period, you are likely to see this arrangement crop up in other places.  The interesting results will be how all of these new layouts do over the next summer as regards safety, since angle parking introduction usually causes more accidents.

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Anyone read that signature by the Chief? Looks like one of a Dr., not a LE man. The last name isn't even there, it's just a capital B, lol.

Yes. I notice that making illegible signatures seems to be a trend among some at city Hall. I wonder if they don't want to take responsibility for their actions? Or maybe show their self-importance at being too busy to have time or to thoroughly think things through? Whatever. I hope that something is done to alleviate the congestion and lack of parking downtown or visitors and locals will be more and more frustrated. Soon the great marketers may realize the importance of planning for parking and infrastructure.

Downtown engineering seems to be more and more based on the whimsies and caprices of our Community Development Director and her enablers on the DDA and at city hall, who appears to jump through almost any hoop to get grants for whatever outlandish proposal that she thinks may work in our city.  The big lot of community parking lost on the bowling alley block necessitates moves like this to get a small amount of those back, and the clandestine purchase of the lot at 106 E Filer at great expense in order to make a parking lot which won't generally see a lot of use. 

This too came at a cost, since a local businessman wanted to build a warehouse on the site for him and others to use, until the Ludington Planning Commission said in effect:  "Nah, we want a city-owned parking lot there instead.  Denied."

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