Where are Troy’s parking hot spots?

Results of a traffic and parking study were outlined Sept. 19 by Nathan Fisher of Woolpert Consultants and Tim Davis of the city development staff during a work session of Troy City Council.

They presented a summary of results of business owner and public surveys, pedestrian counts, crash data, traffic lane counts, a parking inventory and other data along with recommendations short term and long term for traffic and parking.

The study area was 13 blocks of the Central Business District downtown, including the area around City Hall, the Miami County Courthouse and Safety Building and the Public Square. The area has nearly 400 parking spaces.

Parking hot spots were identified near the Courthouse and the northern quadrants of the Public Square. Otherwise, “spots are there,” Davis said.

Among recommendations was adding parking spaces near the Courthouse by converting parking along West Main Street from parallel to angle and removing pedestrian traffic signals at the four entries to the Square. Rapid flash beacons would be installed for pedestrians.

Others included improving signs to help people locate available parking, increasing parking fees, narrowing the streets leading into the Public Square from four to three to improve traffic flow and provide space for other uses such as the angle parking, introducing a placard parking program in some off-street lots and implementing a first-time forgiveness program for parking tickets.

Council President Marty Baker said public comments would be taken at council’s meeting Oct. 2.

Patrick Titterington, city service and safety director, conducted a council straw poll on recommendations to identify concepts in which there was an interest in pursuing.

Councilman Brock Heath suggested more focus on traffic versus parking issues. “It sounds like the parking issues are not as big as a lot of people think. … If you are looking at what we should spend our energy on let’s get the traffic through there better,” Heath said.

Parking for business customers, downtown residents and business employees also was discussed.

The traffic study area did not extend on West Main Street to the site of the Kettering hospital construction. The recommendation was to implement a “road diet” to reduce West Main traffic lanes to three from four from Oxford Street east to the Public Square. “We would keep four lanes from Oxford west on Main Street. Then, we will continue to study KHN’s (Kettering Health Network) impact before we would extend the diet west of Oxford,” Titterington said.