Norwood Selectmen Approve New Measures to Alleviate Downtown Parking Crunch-August 21, 1985

The Norwood Board of Selectmen officially approved a sweeping package of immediate traffic and infrastructural measures designed to alleviate a severe downtown parking crunch that local merchants claim has actively damaged their business revenues.

The Norwood Board of Selectmen officially approved a sweeping package of immediate traffic and infrastructural measures designed to alleviate a severe downtown parking crunch that local merchants claim has actively damaged their business revenues. In voting for the changes, the selectmen acted directly upon the newly released conclusions of an independent engineering consulting firm hired by the town to study the core parking situation.

Several downtown business owners attended the public meeting to support the board’s swift intervention, applauding the selectmen for choosing rapid implementation over further study. “I am not overly anxious to wait around for a long-term solution when I’m trying to do business on a daily basis,” emphasized Carla Foley, the prominent owner of Carla’s Restaurant.

To address the immediate needs of merchants like Carla Foley, the selectmen authorized several specific actions based on the study:

• Formalizing an official request to an upcoming special town meeting to secure mandatory engineering funds required for planned improvements and structural expansions to the public parking lot situated at the intersection of Broadway and Nahatan Street. The comprehensive engineering and construction work is estimated to cost a total of $110,000, which town leaders hope could eventually be offset by state or federal grant funding.
• Cutting the long-standing two-hour parking limit down to a stricter one-hour limit along Washington Street in the heart of the town center. This reduction is aimed directly at increasing customer automobile turnover in the most convenient shopper spaces located immediately in front of storefronts.
• Establishing highly restrictive 30-minute parking limits around the busy United States Post Office facility located at Guild Square to prevent long-term commuter vehicle storage.
• Authorizing the formal creation of an independent, 7-to-9-member parking study commission charged with continuously monitoring evolving parking problems throughout the town center in future years.
• Setting concrete plans to request a dedicated appropriation of $47,000 at the next annual town meeting to fund the hiring of two full-time parking enforcement aides who will work exclusively in the downtown core.
• Formally asking the MBTA to proactively approach private parking lot owners in the vicinity to lease additional parking spaces earmarked for rail commuters who currently clog the downtown spaces.

The approved measures comprise the core of a strategic plan developed by the prominent traffic consulting firm Vanasse/Hangen Associates, Inc. of Boston, which conducted the underlying $20,000 study utilizing state funds. Norwood Police Chief George DiBlasi attended the session to strongly endorse the inclusion of the enforcement aides, stating that the extra personnel would be absolutely necessary if the new parking regulations recommended to relieve the space shortage are to be successfully enforced. “You can’t have the plan without the aides,” George DiBlasi noted plainly, explaining that regular police officers simply do not have the available shift time to cover all of the downtown streets that will be placed under the strict new parking restrictions.

According to William Roache, an engineering representative speaking for Vanasse/Hangen Associates, Inc., the town administration should keep a close, continuous eye on future downtown area development to determine what additional long-term structural actions may eventually have to be taken. William Roache noted that adding an upper deck to the existing parking lot at Broadway and Nahatan Street represents one strong structural possibility for the future.

Town Manager John Carroll reported that the town has already embarked on an internal project to improve the Talbot’s parking lot on Nahatan Street located directly behind the United Church. According to John Carroll, town public works employees are currently repaving and repainting the lot to gain approximately 73 new parking spaces simply through a superior, more efficient layout of the available space. John Carroll highlighted that these internal municipal improvements will cost under $10,000 to execute, whereas the external consulting firm had estimated the price tag for the exact same Talbot’s lot work at between $50,000 and $75,000.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger