The volunteer group that oversees on-street parking in New Canaan voted unanimously last week to designate two areas for commercial truck drivers to pull up and unload for the three weeks in August that the Pop Up Park will occupy their loading zone on the final block of South Avenue.
The park is to be set up on South between Morse Court and Elm Street from Aug. 5 to 28, following approval from the Police Commission in December. Its organizers say it will feature new furniture and umbrellas.
Two years ago, the Pop Up Park Committee placed the loading zone just beyond the park on Elm Street but “that wasn’t safe for pedestrians because of the two crosswalks there,” committee member Jeff Holland told the Police Commission at its July 20 meeting.
“Unfortunately it [the area on South Avenue] is not a well-protected loading zone so there are cars in it all the time. In speaking to the delivery people, they are really fine with everything we do. They are so used to not using that space anyway they end up parking wherever, sometimes they do end up double parked on Elm street or other streets. I know people hate that but the engineers who have looked at this actually say it is a traffic calming kind of thing, and it’s good to have a little bit of friction rather than just have straight where people can go flying down the street.”
The commission voted 3-0 to create a new temporary loading zone directly in front of the Mobil Station for those weeks. Also, because truck drivers are losing two spots in their designated loading zone on South Avenue, commissioner Paul Foley said, a second area will be designated as a loading zone at the top of Morse Court as it approaches South Avenue.
Holland requested that a stop sign be placed at the intersection, calling it a popular motor vehicle cut-through that’s full of pedestrians.