By Terra Henderson
As last minute preparations were made for showcasing the newly remodeled Arnold Hall for Founder’s Day, the surrounding Savannah community stands less than amused. The stress that has been placed on the area’s parking resources by the addition of SCAD students has influenced local businesses and permeated into residential areas. On Oct. 16, the Thomas Square Neighborhood Association held an open meeting at the Georgia Infirmary Community Day Center to discuss solutions to the issue.
The Bull Street corridor parking study presented at the meeting found that five of the block faces on Bull Street from 33rd to 37th streets were at 95 percent volume on average, with 13 blocks in the surrounding area at 70-80 percent. The eventual goal of this project is to disperse the concentration of parking on Bull St. and diminish the average volume to 75 percent of total capacity. In order to accomplish this, the city proposed repainting yellow curbs, marking spaces and using new signage, time zones and residential decals.
Concerning the amount of students who choose to drive to class, Sean Brandon, director of mobility and parking services for Savannah, focused on promoting that more of them ride SCAD shuttle busses and keep their cars off residential streets.
“They are parking down there because it’s cheap and it’s close. When you get into things like time zones, meters, and residential time zones, that’s what draws demand down enough to start matching supply,” Brandon said.
In response to inquiry by attendees about what SCAD was doing to diminish the problem, Jeff Smith, director of security and transportation for SCAD, presented the ad campaign the school launched at the beginning of the year. The campaign attempted to persuade students to take the updated shuttles. He claimed that the school made the effort to convey to students that the shuttle was a reliable service, but those who still choose to drive may need more convincing.
“Students and faculty, wanting to be independent, will drive. SCAD is a private institution, and we have to rely on the city to make rules and parking regulations to give our students incentives to [use] our bus service,” said Smith.
After the disclosure by Smith that the average class session at Arnold Hall lasts for two and a half hours, the response to time zones with two hour limits seemed particularly favorable to residents and business owners alike. The general consensus was continually resistant to the addition of single cell meters, for both the inconvenience it would bring customers and employees and for their unaesthetic value.
For many residents in the immediate area, this is not only a daily battle, but also an emotionally charged and personal issue. For Keith Galloway, a resident of 35th Street, the fierce competition for parking between local businesses, the library and Arnold Hall presents a problem at his doorstep.
“As of yesterday, the zoning department told me that Greenline Architecture was trying to put in a parking lot right next to my house. Anybody knows that if you have a parking lot right next to your house, the value of your house plummets. SCAD opening up that building is going to cost me a lot of money in the long term. I need to protect my investment, my home,” Galloway said.
Although multiple meetings are to follow, the collective of this one in particular reinforced the community’s objective to begin enforcement of parking violations immediately and to draft a parking ordinance for the district to be proposed to City Council for approval. They also began preparation to designate four residential blocks in particular as “test blocks” in order to experiment with the different city solutions to the issue.
Photos by Jessica Palinski.
