It has been found that students will look for any way to avoid paying the lofty parking fees instilled on campus, even if it is at the expense of blocking someone else’s driveway – not only a nuisance to residents but a safety hazard as well.
However, after formally discussing the issue of people parking illegally in south Flagstaff at a city council meeting Tuesday, commuters who park alongside the roads of residential areas may be seeing parking fines more similar – or possibly higher – than NAU’s.
Coral Evans, a Flagstaff City council member and south side resident, said she is frustrated with the disrespect students have for residents when parking their cars along streets.
“I cannot tell you the number of times I have had to call the Flagstaff Police Department to ask them to please ticket and tow or find out who owns the car that is blocking me from getting into my driveway or getting out of my driveway. It is constant,” Evans said. “And you can’t tell me people don’t know that a driveway is being used, when there is a car in it.”
Earlier that day, Evans went outside her home to identify specific parking problems. She took pictures of as many parking violations she could find – from parking far away from the curb to parking in a ‘No Parking Zone’, to even parking in other people’s driveways – and compiled them into a slideshow to present at the meeting.
“Quite frankly, a lot of people that aren’t here tonight said that the problem has been a historic problem that has been going on for the last 50 years and they think that we won’t be able to change it, and I’m hopeful that we will,” Evans said. “I am very hopeful that this council will come up with some solutions to really alleviate the problem that’s going on in south side.”
Karl Eberhard, Flagstaff’s community design and redevelopment manager, presented the following four options for the council to consider:
– A two month “blitz” by the Flagstaff Police Department to ticket illegally parked cars
– Hiring up to two new parking enforcement officers – which would cost approximately $45,000 per officer so parking enforcement could be extended to the Southside.
– Implementing a small parking fee for residents to receive permits, and then selling parking permits to non-residents at a significantly higher price. This would require FPD to extend parking enforcement to the Southside.
– Only allowing non-residents to park free for two hours, and requiring residents to buy slightly pricier parking permits, in addition to extending parking enforcement to the Southside.
Most of the residents at the meeting, such as Greck Cannon, were very opposed to the idea of charging occupants for parking.
“I don’t think that the residents should have to pay for a parking permit to enforce parking in the community,” Cannon said. “I think doing that is unfair.”
Some community members suggested other solutions such as raising the city’s parking fines to be more consequential than NAU’s $90 fine for illegal parking. However, others said they believe NAU should lower their parking fees so students can afford to park on campus rather than park on the streets.
“I don’t want to put all the blame on the university, but like I said, if it were affordable to park on campus, that’s where people would park,” Cannon said. “So, either the city is going to have to make it so expensive to not park on campus that it pushes people into paying on campus, or the university is going to have to change its policy.”
Evans said she does not believe the problem should be in the hands of the university.
“I also want to be very clear when I say that I don’t think NAU has a parking problem at all. I think NAU has quite a few spaces, and I don’t think they have a parking problem,” Evans said. “I think the south side neighborhood has a parking problem, and I think the city of Flagstaff – because the south side is part of the city of Flagstaff – itself has a parking problem.”
City Mayor Sara Presler said she would like to see the council work with the university to solve the parking problem together.
“In light of some of the philosophical and sort of policy considerations that I heard from the university . . . I think that that really warrants us as a community to encourage that our city manager or his designee to have face-to-face talks with the university about whether we share those same philosophies or what we might be able to do to start to really problem solve together,” Presler said.
While she realizes the issue will take time to sort out, Presler wants the city to engage in some short term solutions immediately.
“There might be some things we can do in the interim, for example, like figure out why the heck the parking ticket is $30 outside the university and $90 inside the university,” Presler said. “That might be a really easy place where we can start as a community. And, things that we can control in the short term as far as phasing goes – striping, painting red curbs – and when there is not a red curb, maybe some short term solutions.”
Presler emphasized that she feels this issue is important, and she wants to make sure the city and NAU take all of the proper steps to solve the problem.
“I want to make sure that we have the appropriate level of conversations that we need to have to problem solve,” Presler said. “Because, if we have different identified problems and different identified solutions, we will just kind of be chasing our tail a little bit.”
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