BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
Atherton’s library is popular, with visitors taking over surrounding residential parking, leading to new strict rules about who can park on the streets near the library.
Atherton City Council unanimously voted on Wednesday (July 16) to start a permit parking program for Ashfield Road and Maple Avenue following the decrease of available spaces resulting from the popularity of the Atherton Library and Town Center.
“People are just parking and jamming up the streets, sometimes residents can’t even get out of their driveways,” said Mayor Elizabeth Lewis.
The library can draw over 100 children during programs like storytime, Lewis said. The library has attracted people who aren’t from Atherton, also causing a shortage of parking spots, Lewis said.
When the library opened, Lewis said she was hoping it would be a place where people would ride their bikes to and didn’t plan to build a giant parking lot. The program will affect Maple
Avenue between Station Lane and El Camino Real and Ashfield Road between the Town Center and El Camino Real. Residents will get four permits for free.
Residents can also get temporary guest permits.
Parking in the neighborhood will be enforced from Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. by Atherton police.
Workers get a pass
Cars that provide services like gardening, pool maintenance and delivery will not be ticketed.
There will be a “residential parking only” sign on each street where permits will be enforced.
On Aug. 17, cars without permits will receive a parking citation fee of $41.
Vice Mayor Stacy Holland said she was concerned that nannies would be at risk of receiving a ticket because their cars aren’t labeled.
Police Chief Steve McCulley said residents could give them a guest pass, and if they were to receive a ticket, they could fight it.
Parking recommendations
Lewis said that with the restrictions, she recommends parking at Holbrook-Palmer Park. She said council will be looking at repainting the parking lot at the former Caltrain station at Dinkelspiel Station Lane to make the spaces tighter.
A town has conducted a parking survey to find more spots for a potential parking lot, according to Lewis.
Lewis said there isn’t a lot of land where Atherton can create more parking spaces, but council will be revisiting the topic at a future meeting.