Town officials say they intend to widen the parking spaces in the lot behind the Playhouse this spring, and to improve the accessibility between that lot and Elm Street below.
The alley between the Playhouse and LPQ. Credit: Michael Dinan
The width of the parking stalls in the Playhouse Lot currently is 8 to 8.5 feet, and the new width will be 9 feet throughout with a depth of 18 feet, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.
The new parking stall will be “similar to what we did at Morse Court,” he told members of the Parking Commission during an update at their Feb. 5 meeting.
“We’re going to hope that we do not lose any spaces on the last two stalls,” he said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “But there is a little bit of room. If you’re coming down the [access] road from the Park Street Lot, you can see the parking spaces in the middle [row] are set back a bit, so there’s a little room and we’re hoping it gives us the additional footage that we need.”
Mann said the town also plans to go out to bid this week to create a pedestrian ramp and new stairs installed between the lot and alley between The Playhouse and Le Pain Quotidien. A large compactor and dumpster located behind The Playhouse will be moved to a different part of the lot, where officials will carve out an area in an existing embankment for them.
The other focus area for parking lot paving will be the main train station lot located alongside the platform of the Elm Street Metro-North Railroad station, he said.
The alley between the Playhouse and LPQ. Credit: Michael Dinan
“This spring we’re looking to do the main train station lot,” Mann said. “We had it out to bid last year, had everything ready to go, and the state delayed us unfortunately, so we missed the season. But the contractor still wants to perform the work and we want him to do the work, the money is still there. We’ll try to come in during the spring and find the time that’s best to do it.”
Members of the Parking Commission asked Mann whether there were plans to re-stripe the Park Street Lot located above/west of the Playhouse Lot (possibly this paving season, next year definitely), whether there are plans to create a ramp between the Park Street and Playhouse Lots (not right now) and just which lot will be repaved near the train station (the one directly north of it).
During his update, Mann also noted that the town engineer has identified one bottleneck inside the Center School Lot, along the western edge of the lot, where an additional painted arrow may help with traffic flow.