A pilot, paid-parking program planned for The Point; Diagonal parking turned down

   Editor's note: for an update to this story, 

follow this link: PARKING PILOT limited to Park Place

POINT RICHMOND - A pilot program to test paid-parking in the Point Richmond Business District will be implemented sometime in coming months, Richmond City officials said Wednesday evening.
     At the same meeting of the Point Richmond Neighborhood Council, a much-anticipated plan for diagonal parking - and turning Park Place and Washington Avenue into one-way streets - was turned down by the approximately 25 PRNC members who attended.

Denee Evans

     The parking plan would have resulted in 20 fewer parking spaces around the business area triangle.
     Traffic engineer Ian Barnes explained that earlier concepts that included diagonal parking on one side of the streets and parallel parking on the other side would not allow for adequate fire department access.
     "The streets are just too narrow," Barnes said.
     The news came as a surprise to PRNC members who expected the latest iteration of a parking design to increase parking substantially.
     "We seem to be going backward," Graham Perrett said.
     The group did approve a motion asking city staff to look into the option of having angled parking on Railroad Avenue.
     Concerns were also voiced about how the business district would be able to accommodate the anticipated additional influx of vehicles from planned developments.
     At the end of the meeting, Richmond transportation official Denee Evans said the city would be repainting parking spaces in the downtown business district in coming months.
     Sometime after that, a paid-parking pilot project would be instituted, she said.

This plan would result in 20 fewer parking spaces in the Business District