By Mary Spicer
05/18/08
May 17, 2008 09:38 pm
—
B.J. Smith is a man with a mission.
A Meadville resident since 1951, Smith is no shrinking violet when it comes to his community. In fact, when Allegheny College President Richard Cook presented him with the 2005 Gov. Raymond P. Shafer Award for Distinguished Community Service, he said the recipient might well be described as “Mr. Meadville” on the basis of his widespread involvement. Presented by Allegheny and the Shafer Law Firm, the award recognizes individuals who have made singular contributions to the quality of life in western Crawford County.
These days, however, Smith’s attention has turned to parking. Specifically, overnight parking around Allegheny College along North Main Street and Park Avenue between Baldwin and Allegheny streets.
In a word, Smith thinks it should be banned.
During Meadville City Council’s last monthly meeting, member Christopher Soff shared a photo montage of parked cars lined up along curbs and empty parking lots he said had been forwarded to him by a Meadville resident. That resident was B.J. Smith.
The photos were received without additional comment.
“These cars have parked there for months at a time,” Smith said during a recent interview with the Tribune. “You can’t plow snow. You can’t sweep the streets. It’s unsafe.”
Unsafe streets are a topic Smith knows something about.
In 1962, he was elected secretary/manager of the Crawford County Motor Club, the county’s American Automobile Association affiliate. By the time he retired in 1984, the organization had undergone several mergers, changed its name to Allegheny Automobile Association and had more than 27,000 members.
“One day I counted 46 cars on North Main Street and 52 on Park Avenue — it doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“If you want to park for a few minutes to go in and out of your house, that’s fine,’’ he said. “Like you do at your home. But not for months at a time. Especially when the college has already purchased houses to provide parking lots — and they’re empty.”
Larry Lee, Allegheny’s associate vice president for finance and planning, is the man responsible for the creation of those new lots. During the past three years, in fact, the college has added 239 spaces.
“We have enough parking spaces on campus to accommodate current parking needs,” Lee said Friday. “We built the parking lots and added spaces to accommodate future planning of the next residence hall. That’s why it’s largely empty now.”
Frankly, eliminating overnight parking along North Main and Park hasn’t even been on the college’s radar, Lee said, noting that any such decisions would have to be made by the City of Meadville and, because North Main is a state highway, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
As he sees it, overnight curbside parking simply hasn’t been a problem. In the past, he explained, the city has communicated with the college when there was a need to clean the streets, the college has put notices on the cars and everything has worked out just fine.
“If the decision had been made to eliminate overnight parking — whether we have overnight parking or not on campus — anybody parking there is going to look for the most convenient parking and just shift things into the neighborhood,” he warned. “Sometimes you address one problem just to cause another problem somewhere else.”
That, however, doesn’t mean the college would necessarily be opposed to the idea.
“We do have the capacity on campus to accommodate lost spaces on North Main Street,” Lee said, noting that a lot of study would have to go into the decision to implement a change.
According to Smith, it’s study whose time has come.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
