Aspinwall parking study report under review, findings to be released in February

A study designed to find ways to help elevate Aspinwall residents’ and visitors’ parking woes will soon be released.

The 140-page report crafted by Walker Consultants was submitted to the borough late last year and is currently under review by borough council.

Councilman Mark Chimel, chairman of the planning and zoning committee, said they plan to release it sometime next month.

The public will then have at least a month to review it and make comments before any recommendations are implemented.

“I think it’s very thorough,” Chimel said on Jan. 8. “There’s a lot of recommendations — short-term, mid-term and long-term recommendations. The report includes basically all the data collection that they did, which included talking to residents and other stakeholders. … It’s a long report.

“(We’re) giving council the opportunity to review it first just to make sure we don’t feel there’s anything missing, anything that we feel really shouldn’t be in there and have some public meetings to have Walker come at some point, too, to present it to the public.”

It was unclear if the presentation would be at council’s Feb. 5 workshop or the Feb. 15 regular meeting.

The borough could also host a special meeting just to discuss the report.

Walker Consultants senior analyst Megan Gardo did not respond to several messages seeking comment.

It took a little more than five months to get to this point, with a lot of community involvement.

Council in August approved a $50,000 deal with Walker Consultants to examine parking space, consider potential changes to the zoning ordinance, collect data and come up with recommendations. The national firm has a local office in Canonsburg.

Consultants met in September with officials from local entities, including the borough, police department, chamber of commerce and Allegheny RiverTrail Park.

Other data collection efforts included a business survey in which business owners weighed in on their parking needs for employees and customers and submitted their hours of operation and other related information.

Volunteers took to the streets and parking lots Oct. 24 and 26 as part of the parking study data collection.

Consultants also counted the lined parking spaces on the roads and in the public and private lots leading up to the volunteer days.

Councilman Lou Curcio was among those volunteers counting spaces. He said he just started reviewing the report and looks forward to more public discussion.

“I think we still need some time to dive into it,” Curcio said on Jan. 8. “Before we present anything to the public, we want to make sure we thoroughly go through everything and make sure we have all the information from them. We don’t want to give any misinformation. We want to make sure we’re correct on all the stuff that’s in there.”

Community engagement was one of the biggest selling points for Walker Consultants, which was one of three vendors interviewed for the project.

Chimel said the meticulousness of what he has reviewed so far in the report further solidified the idea council made the right call.

“I think we picked the right consultant and they delivered on what we were hoping for or looking for,” he said. “I think there’s some good recommendations in there that we will be able to implement. They did a good job of communicating throughout the process as well.”

Parking permit changes expected

Chimel declined to get into further details on the recommendation Jan. 8.

However, he said they did include potential changes to the borough’s resident parking permit system.

He said the current operation is residents get free and unlimited parking passes.

“There’s several things that we can look at under the residential parking in terms of number of permits, zones of permits, cost of permits, all those things,” Chimel said.

There are certain parts of the borough where parking adjustments may be improbable.

Fourth and Fifth streets are so narrow that parking is only permitted on one side. Some residents have to use spaces by the ball field and along Field Avenue.