HOW IT WORKS
Using their right-turn signal, drivers pull just ahead of their intended parking space and stop. Turning the wheel slightly, drivers back into the space at about a 45-degree angle. To leave the space, motorists should check for oncoming traffic on their left before pulling forward toward the right into the street.
Source: Chattanooga
Parking along the 200 block of Broad Street will look a little backward after the city's change today to back-in angled parking.
The new parking spaces -- which will create seven additional parking stalls -- will take up a lane of traffic on each side of the street, but the intersections will remain six lanes each, said city Traffic Engineer John VanWinkle.
He said backing into the spaces is safer than traditional angled or perpendicular parking.
"You can see better because you're on the front end of the car," he said.
The change would only affect parking in the outer right-hand lane of Broad Street.
City workers will grind the paint marking the current parallel spaces and repaint the angled spaces at a "nominal" cost, Mr. VanWinkle said.
The spaces will be on both sides of the single block that includes Big River Grille and the old Bijou theater.
Kim White, president of The RiverCity Co., a nonprofit promoter of downtown development, said the additional parking could help sway retailers into setting up shop downtown.
"Our goal is to bring more retailers downtown," she said. "And that's one of the things we have been hit with. They would like more parking on the street."
The one-block project is intended to be a test to see if other on-street parallel spaces could be converted in the future, Mr. VanWinkle said.
"We wanted to start in this area that's closest to the core of the entertainment center," he said.
The conversion should take about a day to complete, with the new spaces in order by Wednesday, Mr. VanWinkle said.
The city will post signs explaining the change, he said.
Kevin rejoined the Times Free Press in August 2011 as the Southeast Tennessee K-12 education reporter. He worked as an intern in 2009, covering the communities of Signal Mountain, Red Bank, Collegedale and Lookout Mountain, Tenn. A native Kansan, Kevin graduated with bachelor's degrees in journalism and sociology from the University of Kansas. After graduating, he worked as an education reporter in Hutchinson, Kan., for a year before coming back to Chattanooga. Honors include a ...
If you want to sway retailers into settling downtown get rid of the DAMN parking meters! This has been suggested for YEARS but to no avail. Lets face it....we don't give a hoot about anything except filling the coffers of a certain bus-parking lot-parking meter company. All this change is a way to help "unmentioned" parking company make more profits.
And not a thought to two things -- 1] the jam behind the person backing into the slot [and how about the tailgaters who will also have to back up in the line of traffic] -- and 2] the accident caused when the driver zooms out of the slot upon leaving [without looking, of course].
Then there are the easily confused and the drunks who will think they are driving the wrong way upon seeing all those parking slots facing the other direction and happily do a U-Turn.
What can possibly go wrong here? I love the forethought given by our lawmakers...
This plan brought to you by the same genius who thought it was a good idea to take away a lane on Barton Ave. Never mind the fact the meeting to voice your opposition and concern for this was held at 4:30 P.M. while most people are still at work. I'm sure this plan will work out just as well. Good job Mr. VanWinkle, you've shown yet again your lack of judgement.
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