Students should evaluate transportation options
By Travis Walters
TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS
“What I tell students is, a car should be among your list of options for transportation, which should include biking, buses, scooters and walking, and you pick from that tool basket based on where you are, where you have to go, and what time you have to be there,” said Sean Brandon, mobility and parking services director for the City of Savannah.
He tells people that finding parking will depend on the area, and that it’s possible to find parking if you’re prepared to give up trying to park directly in front of where you want to go.
“I also tell people to take it as a sign when the person who, among other things, is over parking, bikes to work everyday,” said Brandon.
BIKE RACKS AND PARKING
The carrying capacity on the roads and parking in Savannah is fixed. The city will not be widening any of the roads, “and this is part of what makes Savannah such a special place,” said Brandon.
They’ve been adding bike racks and spaces for scooters around the city to make biking more accessible for citizens.
The first experimental bike rack to go in the street was by Panera Bread. “You need to put bike racks in the street, because that’s the safest place for a bike to be, in the street, not on the sidewalk. That was largely successful,” said Brandon.
Larger versions of those racks were put in Forsyth Park, and then on Barnard Street, in front of Ellis Square, Telfair Square, and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Further bike racks will be added based on the pattern of bike traffic. A survey completed in March showed approximately 700 bikes move through the four largest intersections for bikes per day.
ARNOLD HALL
Occupied parking spaces are a good thing, said Brandon. Parking on the street slows traffic down and generally makes things around the area safer.
“We like to see spaces used. At the same time we generally go with a percentage of about 75 percent, that’s kind of a magic usage percentage. At 75 percent, spaces are being used, but if you go there you’ll probably find a space. Too far above 75 percent you’re never going to find a space. What Arnold Hall has for about a two-block radius is near 100 percent occupancy when SCAD is in session,” said Brandon.
Anyone can use the spaces around Arnold Hall, but the city has had to crack down on students not using them correctly.
“There’s a reason the yellow lines are there. They usually denote something important,” said Brandon.
Yellow lines around Arnold denote several things:
- · Line of sight
- · Residential driveways
- · Fire hydrants
- · Bus stops
Parking on a yellow line will usually result in a ticket, unless the yellow line is denoting a driveway, in that case the car is subject to towing. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we actually don’t like giving tickets. Tickets are a hard way to convey behavioral change,” said Brandon.
When Arnold Hall first opened and the cars flooded in, talk of parking meters quickly surfaced and Brandon said that’s still out there.
“I know everyone hates meters but meters do something very effective and important which is, if you’ve got a business and your business depends on people gaining access to it every hour, or two hours, you need something there on street so that you’ll get that turnover,” said Brandon.
Other solutions to parking around Arnold Hall, and elsewhere, are being looked at. The city is experimenting downtown with reverse angle parking.
“It’s at first, a very scary concept. Reverse angle parking goes on the theory that the safer way to [park] would be if someone were to park backing in angled. What that means is, when you leave that space, you’re facing the road, you load from the curb, which is safer, and you’re making essentially a two-point turn, whereas if it was parallel it’d be three points. It’s less complicated,” said Brandon.
They’re experimenting on Johnson Square, and the area of Bull Street by Arnold Hall is a candidate for the experiment. Wherever they do it, it adds anywhere from 20 to 40 percent more spaces per block.
“But, I like to tell people, even if we’re able to do that and squeeze out another 20 spaces from that, there’s always going to be more people wanting to go there than there are spaces,” said Brandon.
ON THE WEB
Bee Line bus system
CAT bus system
