Portland city traffic officials extended no-parking zones on sections of Deering Avenue near USM’s Portland campus in January. According to city officials, changes allegedly stemmed from a petition filed by community members concerned with an excess of street parking following the closure of the main parking lot on the Portland campus. When asked for a copy of the petition, Larry Ash, traffic engineer for the City of Portland, said the petition was “misplaced.” He denied further requests for information on the changes.
According to Ash, “no parking” signs near the intersections of Deering and Chamberlain Avenue and Deering and Washburn Street were altered at the beginning of the semester. Changes were made to extend “sight distance for people exiting out of those streets,” Ash said. Sight distance is the visibility for a driver approaching an intersection to inspect incoming traffic before turning. Sight distances can be impaired by snow banks or, in the case of Deering Avenue, by lines of cars.
To increase sight distance, the city pushed back no-parking zones along Deering, Washburn, and Chamberlain to allow greater visibility for drivers turning at those intersections. The I-295 overpass on Deering Avenue lost more than 50 feet of public street parking in order to increase visibility for vehicles turning from Washburn Street.
John Peverada, parking manager at Portland City Hall, stressed that changes in no-parking zones came from petitions and community meetings with homeowners around the concerned streets. Furthermore, Ash said the changes arose from new safety concerns from a projected increase in street parking following the closing of the Bedford Street parking lot.
According to Ash as well, a petition was signed by local homeowners and discussed in a community hearing.
“Changes were made in anticipation that there would be considerably more parking along Deering Avenue [following the closing of the lot],” Ash said. “We don’t just frivolously restrict parking.”
Street parking was a problem for the community before the closing of the Bedford Street parking lot. Students consistently parked on surrounding streets before the closing of the Bedford Street lot. A study by Gorrill-Palmer Consulting Engineers conducted in March 2002 for the University outlined 71 spots students used for street parking around the Portland campus. The streets in the study included Washburn, Chamberlain, and Deering.
“I’ve personally seen [students] parking on the bridge before now, at least since last year,” said Dewey Ferguson, parking and transportation manager for USM Police. “They’ve always used Washburn Street.”
Molly Knight, junior social work major, said she parked on the Deering overpass for the past year. “I always parked here because of the parking situation on the Portland campus.”
The question remains as to what petition prompted the recent changes in no-parking zones near the Portland campus.
Robert Caswell, executive director of Media and Community Relations, contacted two active members of the community living near the intersections to inquire about the petition. “They don’t know anything about a neighborhood petition for increasing sight lines around Deering Avenue,” Caswell said.
By city ordinance, changes in traffic require a petition signed by 10 members of the community as well as an open community hearing to discuss the changes before the city alters traffic patterns.
Caswell, however, said a petition circulated around the community this fall addressed long-standing issues such as installing a traffic light at the intersection of Washburn and Deering. Caswell added that no community hearing was held to discuss issues addressed in the alleged petition.
The changes in no-parking zones accompany a sharp rise in ticketing around affected streets. While University police reported a decrease in parking tickets issued after the closing of the main parking lot on campus in January, Portland city officials reported an increase.
According to statistics provided by Peverada, in the first week of the fall semester 29 tickets were issued for cars on Washburn and Chamberlain. In the first week of the spring semester, the number of tickets issued to cars parked on those streets rose to 110.
Peverada said tighter enforcement of parking regulations was not behind the ticketing increase. “Stricter enforcement, the way we look at it, is to put more officers on patrol,” Peverada said.
Instead, Peverada said the ticketing increase came from students not paying attention to the changes in the street parking signs around the Portland campus.
The statistics Peverada provided show that the number of police officers ticketing Washburn and Chamberlain doubled from the fall semester to spring semester.
“It sounds like selective enforcement,” Ferguson said. Selective enforcement, he explained, is the illegal practice of targeting specific groups of people for enforcement of regulations while not targeting others.
Elizabeth Baish can be contacted at [email protected]