As just about anyone living in Westwood knows, parking in the
Village is a nightmare. A parking spot in an all-day zone is a
coveted commodity ““ students can be seen spending up to an
hour babysitting their cars to make sure they can get a spot after
street cleaning is over.
Anyone living in the Village has also probably noticed the
area’s crowding. Driving down a relatively small street such
as Landfair Avenue can be a challenge, especially at night, with
students darting across the street and cars crammed into any spot
possible.
Michael Dukakis, a former presidential candidate and visiting
professor who spends a few short months in Westwood each year, has
proposed an absurd solution: Eliminate hundreds of spots and shove
hundreds of additional cars into the chaos that is Westwood Village
parking.
Beginning in January, the city will begin ticketing residents
for apron parking.
Apron parking is when cars park between the street and the
sidewalk, not blocking the sidewalk but partially jutting into the
street.
In early October, the Daily Bruin reported on the initial
announcements the LAPD made to strictly enforce the prohibition of
apron parking. Only recently, the city announced its plans to delay
enforcement until January to give students more time to accommodate
the change.
But enforcing the regulation in January is still too soon.
Though apron parking certainly does nothing to mitigate the
tight Westwood streets, suddenly eliminating about 200 spots in
Westwood is a terrible idea and will be problematic for hundreds of
people.
Those Westwood residents who currently park this way in front of
their apartments will have to modify their parking habits, and
residents currently parking on the street will have even more
difficulty finding a place to park.
While the elimination of apron parking may be a good idea in the
long run, the city must provide a viable alternative for residents
before making such a drastic change.
Apron parking has been in place for years. Westwood residents
rely on it, and landlords charge extra for residents to have spots
in front of their apartments.
And changing that policy suddenly, whether legal or not, is just
not a good idea.
Before eliminating more than 200 parking spots, the city should
provide residents with some alternatives.
One solution the city could employ to increase and improve
parking in Westwood could be to convert roads to one-way streets
and enforce perpendicular parking on one side. Most Westwood
streets are wide enough to handle this, and perpendicular spots
would make better use of the curb space in the Village.
The city could also convert parts of Westwood to permit parking,
so residents could park on their own streets.
Another solution, one which would be more costly and difficult
to employ, would be to build a parking garage in Westwood and sell
spots to Village residents, who are more than willing to hand over
large amounts of money in exchange for a guaranteed spot near their
apartments.
But until some sort of alternative to apron parking is put in
place to increase the number of other spots in Westwood, a change
is irresponsible and will wreak havoc on Westwood car owners.