Parking Plan C – Moving in the Right Direction, but Still Not There
By now you have probably read about “Parking Plan C” in the newspaper. After 6 six years of intense planning and soul searching, city council has started to move in the right direction, albeit to begin a year from now.
To recap, Plan C permits free daytripper parking from 3rd to 9th Avenues on the sidestreets between Ocean and Carolina Boulevards. It also permits free parking on all of Palm Blvd.
Several observations immediately come to mind:
This is good news for the folks at the lower end of the IOP where congestion has been a nightmare.
Ocean Blvd will continue to keep its Sacred Status.
So, where are all those cars that previously parked on the lower end of the island going to go? We already know they don’t want to pay to park, that is why they are not parking in our “beautiful” city lot. Yep, you guessed right. They will go up the island to Palm Blvd.
Every bit of space on Palm Blvd will soon by filled. It will be massive gridlock. What did Wild Dunes and the middle section of the island do to deserve this treatment from city council?
Since parking on side streets is just fine for the lower third of the island, why isn’t it fine for Palm Blvd? This would dramatically decrease the congestion and still keep the city in compliance with the Beachfront Management Plan.
But daytrippers and their children would still have to cross Palm Blvd where the speed limit is 35 mph. So why not do the logical thing and permit parallel parking only on the ocean side of Palm Blvd up to 41st Avenue and then on the other side of the street to the end of Palm Blvd?
One of the busiest areas of the island is Wild Dunes with all of its condos. You know, folks who come to vacation here and actually pay their way and contribute money to the city’s coffers. Why must we so inconvenience these people who, as JimDaddy always says, “pay to support our lifestyle”?
I just don’t get it. If there is something I am missing, please feel free to respond.
Otherwise, it seems it is time to put some people on city council who have some common sense. And for the record, Councilman Mike Loftus has pushed for this plan for several years and could never get any support from fellow council members.
iopobserver 
The congestion on Palm Blvd has surpassed mere “traffic” build-up. Every weekend and holiday adults and excited children drift into the street while distracted and impatient drivers try to find a parking spot. This combined with the thru traffic of IOP residents and Wild Dunes guests that use Palm Blvd several times a day is a dangerous situation. Now we hear that Palm Blvd parking will be extended to 57th Ave almost to the Contractor’s Gate of Wild Dunes? The residential side streets off Ocean Blvd will now be used for parking? So Ocean Blvd will not have parking but will just have cars searching for parking spots on residents lawns? And all this “plan” by the experts cost the taxpayers of IOP $150.000? We still have no plan for parking revenue? How about discreet numbered parking boxes like we have on Front Street? Parking Plan C sounds almost as bad and Plan A and B!
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