Danvers May Revisit New Downtown Parking Restriction

DANVERS, MA — The Danvers Traffic Advisory Committee plans to reexamine new parking restrictions downtown based on feedback from its recommendation to the Select Board to make five spots on Locust Street "15-minute" parking to help facilitate turnover for local businesses.

The Danvers Select Board approved the recommendation by a 3-2 vote at its last meeting two weeks ago.

"DTAC met last week and the conversation was to think about the parking on Locust Street for other options that may be available," said Select Board member Dan Bennett, the Board's liaison to the traffic committee. "They want to do a little more outreach to the business community and then have a meeting on the 25th. They then may want to come back to us in November for a change, or they may not."

The new 15-minute parking restriction remains in effect pending additional Select Board action.

There was a robust discussion among Select Board members two weeks ago before the majority eventually sided with the businesses that said area employees parking on the main street for hours at a time were taking up valuable spots needed for customers. The spots are in the area of 24 Locust Street.

"From the feedback I've heard, including the business owners in question, they weren't active participants in this," said Select Board member Gardner Trask, who voted against the change.

Select Board member Matt Duggan, who also voted against the change, said his preference remains a comprehensive study of all parking downtown ahead of the opening of the new Maple Street Square project before any additional changes are made.

"There's five spots down there," Bennett said. "There's no lines. There's no stripes. How do you determine what 15-minute (parking) is? So they decided to make it all 15 minutes. I think the recommendation should be that they stripe that parking area and determine which ones will be 15, 30 or an hour.

"They had so much feedback, if you will, that they thought it was prudent to rediscuss it. Now we're talking public safety — police, fire, public safety, public works, electric engineers — they are all involved in these decisions.

"We made a decision. If we want to change it, we should hear from them."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)