Princeton's Permit Parking Task Force Drops Another Neighborhood

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton's Permit Parking Task Force on Monday, removed another neighborhood from its list of proposed residential areas for a permit parking system.

The Task Force dropped its idea to have limited paid employee parking in the Murray Place-Princeton Avenue area.

“The reason that we made that change was based on feedback at the last meeting. We agree that it’s unfair to impose new employee parking demands on that neighborhood, singling it out from all other neighborhoods,” said Councilman David Cohen, member of the Task Force.

The proposal is to implement the parking plan in the Witherspoon Jackson and Tree Streets first as a pilot program. Due to this, the Task Force Suggested not including residential streets on the South-side of Nassau.

The pilot program will provide regulated on-street employee parking in Witherspoon Jackson and Tree Streets, at underused on-street meters, and at the Westminster and MacLean Street lot, explained Cohen. These areas together would provide over 400 parking spaces available.

“Once we get this up and running, we may find we only receive applications for 300 employee parking spots. That would actually be more than what we have currently in unregulated parking spots,” Cohen said.

The pilot program will give the Municipality an idea of how much employee parking is needed.

During the meeting, Council asked staff to begin preparing to reinstate overnight parking restrictions, which were suspended due to COVID-19.

Cohen also presented a “refined” Task Force proposal.

Here are recommendations they made:

• Employee parking permits will be made available at underused on-street meters and in off-street lots including at Westminster Choir College and the Maclean Street municipal lot.
• For all residential neighborhoods with moderate parking demand from nearby uses, (whether such uses be commercial, private institutional, or public school), institute a twoor three-hour time limit for parking available to all. Issue, upon request, one free residential 24-hour permit for residents without off-street parking, and make available to these residents, and also those with a single-car driveway, one paid 24-hour permit at $240/year.
• In neighborhoods with more plentiful on-street parking, resulting from larger lot frontages, and the absence of residences lacking driveways, on-street 24-hour permits may also be sold to residents with full driveways.
• On streets that are more remote from commercial uses so as to experience little or no customer demand (but within reasonable walking distance from such uses) employee permits may be sold at a price of $360/year, for some fraction of the total spaces on the block, calculated after subtraction of free residential 24-hour permits. This will allow adequate regular accessory residential parking to occur, including service providers, visitors, and home maintenance and improvement contractors.
• On streets that are even further from commercial and institutional sources of parking demand, continue to allow unregulated parking for all as is currently the case.

Councilwoman Leticia Fraga, also a member of the Task Force and Cohen asked Council to reauthorize the Task Force and extend its operation until the New Year. Mayor Mark Freda suggested the matter be discussed at the regular Council meeting.

Thank you for reading. Have a correction or news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com

Get breaking news alerts on your phone with our app. Download here. Sign up to get Patch emails so you don't miss out on local and statewide news