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Permalink Reply by Michael Hudson on January 13, 2012 at 2:57am

At the 1/10/12 Town Council meeting, I asked Blacksburg Town Manager Marc Verniel if the town planned to bring the parking lot up to code, He answered "probably not, that would eliminate a lot of parking spaces."  I can understand not wanting to give up parking spaces.    While that might be perfectly acceptable if the use of the lot continues as relatively low impact/turnover leased parking for merchants; If the town were to install high turnover parking meters, the impacts on the Bennett Hill / Progress Neighborhood would be negative and measurable.  The increased traffic specifically the late night alcohol impaired traffic on already over used, residential collector / non arterial neighborhood streets (Progress, Giles, Turner & Harding) would not serve bicycle and pedestrian safety, livability or quality of life well at all. Bringing the lot up to code, or better, could also be an integral location for addressing the short comings of the storm water management  issues that downtown faces if the impermeable area were upgraded to a permeable one.

Increasing parking by an estimated 70 spaces for late night bar patrons, immediately adjacent to neighborhood residences would also mean many more drunk drivers using Progress St, Harding AV, Giles Rd and Turner St.  Neighborhood residents have already been told these streets will never be able to accommodate a sobriety check points for due to legal restrictions that pertain to the width of the roads. Not a tenable situation.  Main Street is the arterial street for the traffic generated by these downtown businesses and there is currently no access to it from this lot.

Mark Verniel did suggest that the neighborhood might be able to look forward to some landscaping and trees installed. Which was good news, but I do think that our neighborhood and town staff need to discuss the potential impacts and how to prevent and mitigate any undesirable consequences resulting from the change in use from a low impact lot to a high turnover lot. After all, If Blacksburg has $650,000 for a parking lot, how much do we have for mitigating the impacts on the neighborhood roads that lead to it? 

Our town staff has done a great job building LEED certified buildings, with the Main Street improvements, overcoming an undeserved reputation for being a difficult place to do business and in host of other areas.  I'm hopeful that this degree of care will begin to be carried over in broad thinking into the downtown neighborhoods.  Please use this as an opportunity to improve living conditions in Blacksburgs downtown neighborhoods.  Every Town Council member claimed as a pillar of their campaign.  please show us you were serious.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Canter on January 16, 2012 at 10:54pm

Well said, Mike.  We'd emphasize that the main concern here is that the volume of drunken driving while increase, especially between midnight and 3 a.m., and especially on Thur, Fri, and Sat nights, and during Tech home football game weekends.

Since the lot is now by-lease, it's often half or more empty.  Converting the lot to public usage will thus increase traffic on Progress generally.

We're all for keeping downtown vital, and car "access" is, for better and worse, part of this.

We hope, then, that the town will increase police enforcement of drunken driving and speeding violations accordingly.  Progress St. has seen more than its share of run-over pedestrians, accidents, etc., as it is.  In fact, in the 12 years we've lived on the corner of Progress and Giles, we've yet to see a single DUI checkpoint employed on either Progress or Giles.  Given the flood of cars driven by OBVIOUSLY drunken drivers already coming out of the existing town lot behind the downtown bars, this is ALREADY an absurdly dangerous situations. 

Where are the GUARANTEED town/policing efforts to address this?

-Bob Canter & Family

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