Saugerties village wrestles with limited parking

(Photo by Will Dendis)

One of the loudest complaints in Saugerties from tourists, shoppers and merchants has been that there is not enough parking in the village.

After a discussion at the village board’s May 1 meeting, that complaint was discussed. As a result, more spaces will be available. But these additional spaces may not be available for long.

Village trustees are adding several parking spaces along Partition Street at the big curve in front of Brine Barrel Pickles. Trustees said the road is wide enough there to accommodate parking on both sides of the road.

There’s only one problem with this solution. The state Department of Transportation has rejected it. Partition Street is a state highway, and the DOT has jurisdiction over it, including where vehicles can be parked. The state has said parking is permitted on only one side of the road.

The village board has decided to defy the state and allow vehicles to parking both sides of the road. The police are not enforcing the DOT’s ban on parking.

Trustees will ask the state to approve parking on the curve one more time.

On May 15 the number of spots in the village’s municipal parking lot behind Mirabella’s will be temporarily reduced. A rough winter has left the lot in bad shape, with potholes and with the stripes delineating the parking stalls faded. Throughout the day on May 15, parts of the lot will be closed while crews repair the potholes, clean up the lot, and restripe the stalls. Trustee Terry Parisian and village mayor William Murphy say that parking in that lot will be limited throughout the day. The trustees suggested the public find other places to park their vehicles.

The village Traffic Committee is charged with the job of coming up with ways to ensure that vehicles move expeditiously through the village, as well as with parking.

One of the committee’s members, Al Bruno, has come up with a unique although expensive way of solving the village’s parking problems. He’s suggested a parking garage in the lot behind Mirabella’s made of modular units.

If that scheme is adopted, each parking space would cost the village between $15,000 and $30,000, which would probably mean that the meter rate, now 25 cents per half-hour, would have to be raised.

Meanwhile, the idea of moving the village’s recycling operations, which are located in the parking lot behind Mirabella’s, to a Montross Street lot has been rejected. Such a plan would have created more parking spaces in the Mirabella’s lot, but the proposed location of the recycling center was deemed too far out of everyone’s way.

Village officials have also rejected turning that small parcel of land at the end of Montross Street at the intersection with Partition Street into a parking lot. Alex Wade, who’s in charge of special projects for the village and a member of the Traffic Committee, said the Montross lot would fit too few cars to make if worthwhile.