Village of Lombard Legistar System

John King, 326 E Central

Mr. King explained that he was there regarding a mailing he received from the Village

about parking on Central. He has alled his Trustee because of the parking around there

since the soccer field was put in. On the weekend there are between 20-30 cars. His

family can't park in front of his house. They have problems backing out of the driveway,

the parked cars block fire hydrants and they park in the wrong direction on the street.

They should have put in some kind of parking when the field was put in. It happens

every weekend in the spring and fall from 11am to 5pm. No Parking on the north side

will not help. We also go through this every Lilac Parade day. They put up signs and

don't take them down. He went on to say that he grew up near Sox park and they had

residential parking by permit. If Lombard did something like that there would be no

complaints from the neighbors. They park on Stewart and Grace too. If you add no

parking it will make it worse. During the summer it's not a problem, it's only during the

soccer season. Difino asked if the Firebirds had been made aware of this. Anderson

answered that staff talked to the chairman of the soccer league.

Wally Elftman, 300 E Central

Mr. Elftman told the committee of an incident where a parent yelled at him because he

parked in front of his own house. He also said his mother in law is 85 years old and

asked where she is supposed to park. Difino commented that they do park on both

sides of street and it's really not wide enough. He also said that he would talk to the

soccer league at their meeting later in the week. They are moving their games back to

the Commons. Mr. King suggested that perpendicular parking be added to accomodate

more cars.

Kuehnlenz presented a map showing school locations between North Avenue and St.

Charles Road. He explained that in the 1990's the Village and both elementary school

districts worked together to create Preferred Pedestrian Route plans for each school. A

census of where kids were located was taken and plotted out to identify routes to the

schools. Sidewalk and signage were installed during that process. One thing they did

not do, was install sidewalk in unimproved areas. The Village is currently putting in

sidewalk in the Lombard Lagoon area, those people are being assessed for the

sidewalk. As policy states, within a three-block area of schools the Village will install

sidewalk on at least one side of street. So we're left now with this area that is improved,

but at the time they were not required to install sidewalk, so they were not assessed for

sidewalk. To put sidewalk on one side of LaLonde and Fairfield from Prairie to Pleasant,

one sidewalk on Prairie, and about 500 feet of sidewalk on Edgewood, it would cost

approximately $426,000. Schwarz asked how the three block rule is defined.

Kuehnlenz explained that in this situation, Edgewood is the limit of the third block.

Schwarz asked how many students attend Schafer. Anderson responded that we don't

know right now, but we are working on that with the schools as part of Safe Routes to

School.

General discussion ensued regarding the Sidewalk Policy.

Ms. Roberts commented that if staff is polling Schafer for total student population, it will

not show that there are five kids that are just under school age on her block. In her

opinion a poll is not going to give you anything accurate.

Comprehensive Downtown Parking Study

Deputy Chief Cuny reiterated that Lombard does not have a designated parking

enforcement officer like other communities may. There are two CSO's, providing

nobody is on vacation or duty injury. They handle parking complaints, stray animal

calls, traffic control at accident scenes and they cover the front desk. They are busy.

Because there have been some absences, the downtown area has not received the

scrutiny that it probably should. The day patrol was recently given instruction to hire

back a CSO on overtime if they don't have someone available for downtown

enforcement. Enforcement has been more consistent in the last three weeks. Because

we have so many people working down there, to have some kind of master list would

just not be practical. We see no benefit to changing the signage to customer parking

only, it may just muddy the water. If people are starting to get tricky and moving their

cars, we're starting to get after that because the intent is 2-hours only. Mr. Masterson

and other property owners can always call the Police Department.

Mr. Masterson told the committee that prior to April there was about six months of no

enforcement. Hand in hand of starting the study, enforcement started, so it proved that

enforcement worked. During June and July there was no enforcement. He came to the

August committee meeting and enforcement started again. Another business owner

commented to him that the only thing that ever worked was the meter maid. He went on

to say he does not want to call the Police and bother then all the time, he also has other

things to do. The Police have not been doing their job, because they don't have the time

to. Glen Ellyn can do it. He also said he does not see how a list can be cumbersome.

If there are 41 businesses that want customer only signage he thinks the Village should

consider it. Deputy Chief Cuny responded that it does not matter what the sign says, it

still has to be enforced. Mr. Masterson explained that if a merchant parks there all day

and the sign says customer parking only you have one sheet of paper to check. It

allows merchants to say that plate number ABC is there, you can drive up and write a

ticket.

General discussion ensued regarding how Glen Ellyn and Wheaton handle

enforcement.

Nolan commented that the problem is isolated to just a few areas and there are

consistent violaters. Any business owner who does not have off-street parking should

be required to have permits and you would have a list of who should be parking in the

lot. They're in this habit of there are plenty of spots, but they don't realize that since they

are there all day they may be there during another businesses peak time. She further

said that she thinks customer parking only would clear these spots. Chairperson

O'Brien commented that he thinks a list is overkill. Glen Ellyn's and Wheaton's

downtown areas are larger than Lombard's. There are going to be times that the CSO's

are going to have something else to do.

Mr. Nigg stated that the problem is when Catholic Charity has a meeting upstairs there

is no parking in the back, so they swell out to the street, then parking is flooded. That

happens every other week. There are times when there is no parking, but they don't

stay over two hours. Deputy Chief Cuny explained that customer parking only would not

stop those people, they are conducting business there.

Chairperson O'Brien summarized that it sounds like the Committee is leaning towards

Anderson explained that the purpose of the study is to help determine how we want

traffic to flow and how to build roads to take in pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Schwarz

commented that it mentions widening sidewalks and asked if it might include new

sidewalks. Anderson responded that one of the recommendations we can probably

expect out of this is that all streets should have sidewalk. Bicycles will be a question,

whether we build on parkway or bike lanes, etc. Chairperson O'Brien asked who is

responsible if you make a bike route. Anderson answered that if the Village designates

a road a bike route, the Village is responsible to make sure its safe, the physical and

non-physical aspects of it. Lombard is becoming a more urban village, as time goes on

it's going to be expected that we're set up more like Chicago or inner suburbs, which are

pedestrian and bicycle friendly.

General discussion ensued regarding the circulator bus.