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BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto council members yesterday proposed their twofold solution to RV dwellers crowding city streets — giving them permits and only allowing them on one side of the street.
The city would offer permits for 20 RV dwellers to park on Coyote Hill Road outside the Stanford Research Park and for 17 RV dwellers to park at the end of Embarcadero Road by the sewage treatment plant.
On 22 blocks in industrial and commercial areas, the city would put up signs allowing parking on one side of the street, with the restrictions alternating sides every six months.
The idea was proposed yesterday by a council committee of Ed Lauing, Keith Reckdahl and Julie Lythcott-Haims. The full council will consider the proposal on Aug. 24.
“This program design balances the need to address impacts of oversized vehicles with legal, practical and humanitarian considerations,” City Manager Ed Shikada said in a report for council.
The permit program is intended to move RV dwellers away from businesses and neighbrhoods. RV dwellers would be required to have insurance, follow a “good neighbor agreement,” work on finding housing and pay $15 per month.
The city would do landscaping on Coyote Hill Road to prevent wildfires and paint new lines on Embarcadero Road so RVs don’t block bike lanes, Shikada said.
Both areas would get portable toilets and trash bins.
But the permitted areas can only handle a fraction of Palo Alto’s 133 RV dwellers, as the city counted on May 6.
Business owners have complained about RV dwellers blocking bike lanes and driveways, scaring off customers and employees, stealing water and electricity and dumping trash and sewage.
On impacted blocks, the city is proposing to put up signs that limit parking to one side of the street from January to June and the other side from July to December.
The city will measure success by getting feedback from businesses and looking at spillover parking in neighborhoods, Shikada said.
Both the permit program and the parking restrictions are considered pilots, expected to last one year.
The pilots would cost $823,800, while citywide restrictions would cost $4.5 million to design and install signs and to monitor and enforce restrictions, Shikada said.
“A pilot will not fully resolve impacts outside the pilot geography. For example, unpermitted oversized vehicles could move from pilot areas into non-pilot areas,” Shikada said.
The following streets will have parking restricted on alternating sides for six months at a time:
• 4000 block of Transport Street
• 900 block of Commercial Street
• 900 block of Industrial Avenue
• 100 block of Page Mill Road
• 2800-3200 block of Park Boulevard
• 200-400 block of Olive Avenue
• 2900 and 3200 block of Ash Street
• 200-400 block of Lambert Avenue
• 1000 block of Elwell Court
• 1000 block of Corporation Way
• 1000 block of East Meadow Circle
• 2400 block of Embarcadero Way
• 2400 block of Faber Place
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