News

By Mary Thurwachter

    At both its meetings in February, the Lantana Town Council grappled with on-street parking woes on Hypoluxo Island.
    The council proposed a solution in January to mandate parking on the odd-numbered side of the street on odd-numbered days, and on the even-numbered side on even-numbered days.
    Then, after further consideration, members proposed the odd/even rule on a yearly basis: park on the odd-numbered side of the street in odd-numbered years and on the even-numbered side in even-numbered years.
    But by the council’s second meeting in February, that ordinance, too, was dismissed.
    The proposed laws were meant to address mainly lawn maintenance and construction vehicles parked on both sides of roads.
    Mayor Dave Stewart said he has heard many complaints from drivers who have to zigzag around parked trucks.
    The town had also heard from Fire Marshal Matthew Gaffney, who said he is worried about “parking by service vehicles and contractors on narrow roads that make it impossible to maneuver the fire rescue vehicles down such roads, especially when they are parked on both sides of the street.”
    Several residents said negotiating around large vehicles parked on both sides of the road was a recipe for disaster.
    At the Feb. 22 meeting, Stewart said he and Town Manager Deborah Manzo had toured the problem area and found the difficulties mainly were from construction vehicles on site for months at a time.
    “This yearly thing is not gonna work,” Stewart said. It would mean building cranes stretching across the street.
    Residents like Michele Fritts agreed. “It would be awfully hard to have cranes across the street,” she said. “The main problem on the south end (of Hypoluxo Island) is the flow of traffic. We are in favor of having one way in and one way out. That wouldn’t help the north end of the island, however.”
    Another Hypoluxo Island resident, Media Beverly, also asked that the right-turn-only sign be returned at the intersection of northbound South Atlantic onto Southeast Atlantic. “That helped a lot,” she said.
    “I know firsthand that there were minimal traffic issues when most southbound traffic used Southwest Atlantic and most northbound traffic used Southeast Atlantic,” Beverly said. “It was easy — one way in and one way out. But after the town removed the long-standing right-turn-only sign at the intersection of northbound South Atlantic onto Southeast Atlantic, most northbound vehicles now turn left onto Southwest Atlantic, creating more congestion on Southwest Atlantic.
    “The solution is simple,” she said. “Let’s install traffic counters, as was done before (which resulted in the permanent speed cushions), to determine if Southwest Atlantic Drive is truly overburdened with vehicular traffic, more so than Southeast Atlantic Drive.”
    Stewart said that to put up the requested traffic sign required a traffic study, something the town has been discussing.
    Erica Wald, who also lives on Hypoluxo Island, talked about maneuvering around trucks parked on both sides of the road.
    “When there’s an obstruction, there’s a car coming at me and I have to back up,” she said. “Sometimes there’s a standoff. Sometime there’s going to be a head-on collision. I absolutely agree we need to put up a one-way sign.”
    With both proposals falling flat, it’s back to the drawing board for the on-street parking issue.