I can look at soaked leaves and see the future. It is not a talent, and I don’t think I could charge $50 to any lost soul who wants a peek into the next few years. All I have to do is go to the end of my driveway and look down. Immediately I can tell that the piles of tree remains will be there until next spring.
For the most part, the city I live in, Elgin, Ill., does a fine job handling a delicate balance of historic preservation and future observation. The historic district holds some of the most distinguished century-old homes in the Midwest, while the downtown district continues to work feverishly so realtors can pitch the “hip” word into new condos rising off the Fox River.
The annual leaf pickup, however, is going nowhere. Trust me, the long and high line of autumn muck along my street is not moving an inch. Every year residents drop an e-mail bomb on city hall wanting answers, and every year the same question is recycled and spread through the Elgin powers like mulch: What do we do about the parking?
You see, on my street there is a no-parking ban between 2 and 6 a.m. The block is well covered by educational institutions—a high school is to the west and elementary schools are to the east and south. People from outside of the neighborhood park there daily, and if public works departments have one kryptonite it is cars sitting on one or both sides of the street. Officials say no work can be done if anything is in the way. Odd and even parking has been discussed at length. A complete ban also has been thrown around town.
Some residents, however, aren’t raking in this vibe for change, saying they simply would not know where to position their cars if parking was strictly enforced. Along with that delicate balance of preservation and forward vision is a sensitive pendulum of single-family houses and apartment complexes. Some live on streets that contain multiunits, forcing several cars to the street.
Elgin vows to suck it up and solve its leaf pickup program, but when it comes to parking I am certain other cities face the same waving of community pitchforks year in and year out. The U.S. exceeded the 300 million mark in population a couple of months ago, and there are nearly 200 million cars floating around on the road network. How to move them should be at the top of every DOT’s priority list, but how to store them shouldn’t be far behind.
Chicago is the closest example I have to a parking pandemonium. Property investors are getting rich off the space-challenged epicenter, charging thousands of dollars for a thousand square inches worth of holding area.
How do we adequately manage traffic at a true standstill? Will it take a variety of no-parking bans? A sudden growth in parking garages? Every city is different, and each will require a different line of thinking. But the problematic pile is sitting there, and it is not going away.
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