TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to work with staff to conduct a red curb evaluation in parking impacted neighborhoods, to find any possible removals or reductions in order to increase available on-street parking spaces while maintaining safety.
DISCUSSION
Parking in Long Beach is a concern to residents in every neighborhood of every Council District. Many neighborhoods are limited in their available options to address parking problems due to availability of building additional parking spaces, constraints due to zoning or coastal zone restrictions, and the number of parking spaces required to be created for various new development projects. In the past the City has conducted parking studies for various neighborhoods to generate suggested approaches, and assessments of the number of available parking spaces for various parking impacted neighborhoods. The City has also initiated programs to help take cars off the street and have them park in garages instead through garage clean up days, and streamlined policies to renovate old garages that can no longer accommodate modern sized vehicles.
However, throughout the City there are curbs that are painted red near intersections, driveways, alley exits, or other infrastructure to indicate that parking is not allowed. In order for the City to evaluate the necessity or benefit of individual red curbs, an audit of red curbs in parking impacted neighborhoods could show that there are opportunities to remove or reduce the length of red curbs with the goal of increasing parking availability. Reducing red curbs could be appropriate in situations like 4-way stops, or where traffic speeds are lower, or where view corridors would not be obstructed by a parked car.
Managing our available parking spaces in Long Beach more efficiently is a priority and could go a long way to improving our communities as well as reducing the numbers of cars on the road circling blocks only because they cannot find a parking spot.
Th...
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