Oak Park Seeking Public Input On Plans To Streamline Parking Rules
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Oak Park is planning to experiment with rules for overnight parking in a section of the village and residents will get to weigh in on the plan Thursday night.
Officials say the idea is to simplify and standardize the village's residential parking system. Currently, there are 120 parking ordinances and more than 10-thousand parking signs throughout Oak Park.
Thursday night from 6p-9p, residents will be able to hear about the proposed pilot program and to ask questions and make comments. The event will be at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School at 325 S. Kenilworth Avenue.
Village Manager Cara Pavlicek says the experimental program would run for nine months, starting in the spring of next year.
She says it would involve residents who live between Harlem and Oak Park Avenues and South Boulevard and Harrison Street.
Pavlicek says that, under new parking rules, residents in the experimental zone would have to park on even and odd sides of the street on even and odd days of the calendar.
"The intent of the pilot program is to try a new way of, hopefully, minimizing the regulations so it's a simpler process. I think we'll hear strong opinions both for and against the pilot program," she says.
Officials say that when Oak Park was just starting to grow as a village, it was never envisioned that there would be as many vehicles as there are now.
Pavlicek says there's too much congestion right now with cars being allowed to park on both sides of the street. She says having cars on one side or the other would make it easier for emergency vehicles to get where they're going as well as for village trucks that pick up leaves curb-side during the fall.
More information on the pilot program is available on the village's website.
