Tackling the parking issue, a lot of ideas have been discussed, but never acted on

A while back, I said I was going to start commenting on some of the comments that have been posted on COLUMBIA TALK.


Among the issues drawing plenty of attention are River Park, how the council conducts its meetings, Section 8 and slum lords/out of town landlords, budget cutting, the market, the condition of the streets and sidewalks and the list could go on and on.

So, here goes with the first issue of parking in Columbia.

To make it easy, the streets in Columbia weren’t designed for homes/apartments that have multiple vehicles.

With that being said, one of the biggest problems I see with multiple vehicles and parking deals a lot with the number of available spaces in a block. I’ll use a one block example, without dealing you were it is. There were seven houses on one side of the street. Of the seven houses, just two are one car houses. On the other side of the street, there are six houses, all with multiple vehicles, including one house with five vehicles and another with a vehicle, which is only moved for sweeping.

Plus, there are three cars parked on the block, whose owners live on another street, where there is parking.

Now, let’s talk about the problems with apartments. It doesn’t appear that in most cases, the buildings with multiple units, the ordinances designed eliminate parking issues isn’t being followed. And this isn’t anything new, its been going on for years. So, how do you alleviate the problem, well, perhaps you can start enforcing the ordinances, and/or make it tougher for the slum lords/out of town land lords to rent their properties and clean them up. That would be one idea.

Look around where there are lots in downtown? Who is filling them? Well, in some cases, it is the customers of the businesses, but in most cases, it is those renting apartments, who are filling them. There are signs in many of them as too who can park and who can’t. I urge those who own those parking lots to start calling police or the borough to have the vehicles towed. It’s a start, but as someone once said to me after seeing a cat booted, they don’t care about it and they are probably right.

A few years back at either a council meeting or one of those business meetings, parking in downtown was discussed. I even think someone did a survey of available parking in Columbia and there was plenty. Look in the alleys, okay to be politically correct in Columbia, avenues. But, since our town changes greatly after six, I’m not too wild about parking in the avenues.

The borough has created two parking lots – one next to the market and another down at the foot of Locust Street. Neither are really finished. It will help, as long as the apartment dwellers don’t find them first.

Another idea off that was making a couple of key streets like Cherry, Locust and Walnut, different directions of one way. I think it was Cherry and Walnut (300 and 400 blocks) one-way going out of town and Locust one-way coming into town. That and investigating angle parking in those areas or parking on one side of the street never got off the ground. I saw an awful lot of angle parking down South last week and it worked because the streets were much wider in some of the towns. But doing that in Columbia might be more of a problem than a help a nd wouldn’t take care of the problem either.

Is there an easy answer to the town’s parking problems? Well, with the pending finish of the parking lot in the 100 block of Locust Street, perhaps those who have businesses in the downtown use it for their employees.

I’d even be open to some type of parking permits.

All of this has been discussed, but action was never taken. Perhaps its time.

But I still think the easiest way to end the problems and if our town takes off like many expect, would be to enforce the ordinances on the books. It’s a start, a small one at that.