On September 18, 2018, you may have noticed some restriping of the pavement on Loomis Street between James and Rath Street.  They just enhanced the existing parallel parking on the north side of Loomis, but on the south side, they scrubbed the existing parallel parking lines and installed angled parking down the length, as seen below looking west and then looking east:

The sixteen angle parking spots replace the twelve parallel spots that were there before as seen in this aerial view:

A couple of questions are almost immediately thought up.  The first I wondered about was who authorized this move?  It had been noted in the most recent DDA meeting on September 10 cryptically that this was a 'first step', no vote was made.

Councilor Brandy Henderson would report on Facebook later that day stating that it was a temporary traffic control order (TCO) made by the police chief, Mark Barnett, who doubles as our traffic engineer, and that it may be used elsewhere if it is deemed successful.  A quick look at the MI Uniform Traffic Code suggests that he does have that authority (see p. 7 and 9), provided he predicates it on established traffic practices or as a result of a traffic study.  I have asked the City for the TCO and its justification via the FOIA, which may give the public some idea about what they would consider a success.

The next question I had was whether the four new parking spaces added by the move offset the potential danger to traffic by the 'street shift' and lack of adequate pavement.  As seen in the diagram below of the typical minimal measurements in feet of a safe 'hybrid parking' street.

 

For this I measured Loomis Street, and found that the angle parking stalls were 16 ft. out, the parallel stall was out 8 ft.  That's fine.  However the distance between the stalls was only 21 ft. total, a bit less than the 27 ft.  (12 + 15) for the main portion of the street.  This could present some danger, especially since those coming from the west on Loomis will need to shift left several feet.  The City failed to paint the street median, but if and when they do, one could hope that they give at least 12 of the 21 feet to the angle parking side.  

It's hard to say whether this will prove unsafe, it definitely isn't optimal for the hybrid parking recommendations, nor would it be great for bicyclists travelling east on Loomis. Easier to say is that the City may have a good idea here, but they should have went about a more transparent way of implementing it, so that the public's input could have been used.  

One should note that the DDA, along with other city officials and the police chief, saw the proposed road diet on Ludington Avenue in a favorable light, ignoring the bulk of the population until the MDOT told them it was impractical and unsafe.  That episode likely made city officials less likely to bring these experiments before the public, so that they could save face if it turned out to not be a good idea.  That's a poor decision in itself.

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Thanks for bringing this to our attention X. I agree with you. This is another example of poor decision making, something a good City Manager should /would  correct by making the process open to public scrutiny. As far as the new angle parking is conceerned, I'm willing to give it a chance to see if it works out as long as it is confined to side streets and not main roads. Like X, another concern I have is cyclist being targets for vehicles backing up into the street.

So, this big improvement gets just 4 extra parking spots, and attached to it is a lot more danger and accidents? Doesn't make any sense to me at all, esp. in the busy summer months. Is that why they are trying it out now, in the dormant months? That too is silly and irresponsible. For sure this should be restricted to no bicyclists/joggers/skateboarders/golf cart types/walkers. Another serious lack of transparency by city officials, nothing new, and not going to change until idiot-types are replaced.

As I've said on Facebook, I love the idea of using angle parking to create more parking in the downtown on these side streets, but I'm afraid this street and most, if not all, other side streets do not have the dimensions to support the move in any degree of safety.

Even if the dimensions were OK, there is the issue of safety which should have been addressed and whether that loss of safety was balanced by the 33% increase of parking spaces.  With the street appearing at least 6 feet too thin to support a safe parking arrangement, this shouldn't have really been implemented without a bona fide traffic engineering study by professionals evaluating the move and offering that justification to the public.  

Here's an interesting evaluation of how such a parking conversion worked in Lincoln Nebraska.  It states as standard that the angle parking lines need to be at least 15', the adjacent lane 15', which if adapted to Loomis Street would make the northern lane 7', when it should be 12' for that side's parallel parking.  It noted the accidents increased by quite a bit even when the streets were wide enough, but was often offset by the added parking (i.e. if 33% more spaces were added, roughly 33% more parking accidents were likely to occur),  However, it concluded a few things, including:

I noticed the angle parking today. The street isn't heavily traveled and I thought  the angle parking would work in that area.  As for cyclist and golf carts , pay attention, goes the same for any motorist.

At first blush, the new setup does look efficient and harmless.  Likewise, I am of a mind to believe that angle parking can be as good as or even a better parking alternative to both parallel and reverse-angle methods in the proper situation.  

The thing that bothers me is whether the situation is proper here on that street.  If it's the middle of a big weekend when all the parking is stressed, this is likely to create a street with very little room for error on both sides for those traveling in any mode of transport.  If the street width is too small to be safe, that only makes it worse. 

I don't see this as being much of a problem now or during the 90 day trial period. When the new apartments are finished things will change and this issue might have to be addressed again.

It would be better to address this now than in the future. It would be better if Loomis Street was changed to one way heading west towards Rath Avenue. Then you could have angle parking on both sides of the street. And would be safer seeing as this street is too narrow for two way traffic. Plus it would be easier and safer using the city parking lot. The one way could be extended further west to Loomis and Robert or Loomis and S William and additional diagonal could be made available.

Take a look at N William Street along the House of Flavors.  That looks like it was designed by someone in the auto body repair business.

Two way traffic with wrong way diagonal parking along the front of the HOF. Diagonal and parallel parking along the other side. And a lot of foot traffic along Ludington Avenue in the summer. But both the locals and our visitors seem to have adjusted to this cluster fudge of a street. This is another street that should be one way.

Been to Scottville lately? they just re- angled the angle of their main street parking. Who ever did the earlier marking had the angle wrong . When the longer pickups were parked the back ends were out in the basic street causing vehicles to cross into oncoming traffic to get around them.  At least the city took note of the problem and spent the money to correct it.

Thanks for the prompt, stump.  Yes, I was aware of the temporary problem they had in Clown Town.  It came to the council this April:  

The angle is important.  I haven't gotten my protractor out, but it looks to me like they have a 45 degree angle on Loomis.  The bigger trucks don't appear to be hanging out in the lane.

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