‘It’s Going To Hurt Merchants’: Parking Commission Pushes Back on Elimination of 15-Minute Spots on Elm Street

Members of the appointed body that oversees New Canaan’s parking department this month pushed back on part of a larger plan that will see the one-way stretch of Elm Street converted to paid spots.

Specifically, members of the Parking Commission during their May 7 meeting objected to plans to eliminate—rather than increase—the number of free 15-minute parking spaces on Elm Street while the town converts those free spots to paid.

“If we are not interested in revenue, what is the argument against short-term parking?” Commissioner Katie O’Neill said during the regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “Because as I see it, we are adding a surcharge on coffee shops, on sandwich shops. All the sudden now if you are picking up a $15 sandwich it’s going to be $15.50 or whatever. And without short-term spots, you will not have that turnover that dedicated short-term spots will offer.”

She added: “What we are taking away is just a handful of 15-minute spots which are dedicated short-term. I thought we were actually going to be adding to the 15-minute short-term parking. We’re not only not adding, we’re taking away what’s already there. I think it’s a mistake. I think it’s going to hurt merchants. I think merchants are going to lose the run-in business altogether because it’s all pay now. There’s not even the hope of getting a free spot.”

Faced with the concerns from O’Neill and others on the Commission, a municipal worker in the first selectman’s office—Administrative Officer Tucker Murphy—said the town would look into Commissioner Nancy Bemis’s proposal to make all of Elm Street free for the first 15 minutes of parking. (Before the end of the meeting, Bemis said it was the sense of the Commission to explore preserving 15-minute parking on Elm “in some configuration … before we go ahead and implement this plan.”) 

Town officials have talked about converting Elm Street to paid parking for more than a decade. First Selectman Dionna Carlson proposed the change more than one year ago, and last month, the town’s funding bodies approved funds to purchase paid parking machines for Elm Street (seven machines) and South Avenue (two machines). 

Designed to relieve congestion on Elm, New Canaan’s central shopping and dining street, the introduction of paid parking is to be offset by the town’s plan to make the Park Street Lot completely free for up to three hours. The Park Street Lot has more spaces than Elm, and the three-hour window would be more than the two hours that currently are allowed on Elm Street.

Murphy said during the meeting that the town “will be nimble with this.” The town will make adjustments on-the-go following the rollout of paid parking—currently planned for an August implementation, given time needed for delivery and installation of the machines. 

It will “probably not be 100% correct the first go-round,” Murphy said.

O’Neill responded that she liked the idea of being nimble, adding, “I really would have preferred to be nimble out testing out a big chunk of 15-minute spots. I really would. It think that would create such turnover.”

Bemis, O’Neill and Commissioner Marley Thackray spoke favor of making the first 15 minutes of all spaces free on Elm Street, while requiring motorists to register with the “pay-by-plate” mobile software that the town intends to use for both on-street parking and, eventually, municipal lots. Murphy said she would take the Commission’s feedback to the town and vendors involved. 

A guest at the meeting, Laura Budd, executive director of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, said that people constantly complain about parking and that the changes are meant to undo the “double-incentivizing” for downtown visitors and workers to park on Elm, because the spaces are so close to shops and restaurants as well as free. 

“The working theory is that there will be less people competing for spots on Elm Street because there will be more availability,” Budd said. “You drive down any time from 8:30 on and it’s almost impossible to get a spot.”

Budd noted that the town also is reconfiguring the Playhouse Lot so that delivery trucks start using that area instead of double-parking on Elm for deliveries, and that a new accessible ramp to the alley between the movie theater and Le Pain Quotidien is expected to make access to Elm Street easier for disabled people. 

Noting that change is always difficult, Budd said, “I think people will get used to it and it will rely on the communication plan” as well as a grace period where people will not be ticketed in the early days or weeks of the new paid system.