Concerns on Parking in Downtown Cortland Raised During Common Council Meeting

Concerns on the redesign of the Groton Ave. parking lot in Downtown Cortland were once again brought up during the Common Council meeting Tuesday evening. Cortland resident Jim Nichols brought up the confusing signage, lack of handicap parking, and single entryway from Groton Ave. as issues he and several other residents have.

Mr. Nichols says signage in the lot are knocked down or not clear on who can and cannot park in the spaces. He says there is also less handicap parking, particularly next to the Hollywood Restaurant. Nichols continued the older population in the Cortland Community has gotten confused on where to park; noting that people have gotten ticketed by parking in residential parking spaces.

“There’s numerous parking places if you’re a business person or a resident. What we need is more parking for the general public.” Nichols said to the Common Council.

He also brought up the issue with how public parking has been reduced from a 3-hour allowance to a now 2-hour. Nichols said if you’re out to enjoy a local restaurant and decide afterwards to go to other businesses that two hours is not enough time.

Lastly, Mr. Nichols says the new one entrance to the parking lot from Groton Ave. is not big enough; citing an issue he has experienced when trying to enter the lot when vehicles were trying to leave the parking lot.

Cortland Mayor Scott Steve says the reason for the Groton Ave. parking lot is now down to one entrance from Groton Ave. is because when the lot was rebuilt, limiting the number of entrances increased the available parking spaces.

Mayor Steve added the entrance to the parking lot from the street will be widened saying it was a contractor error when it was built and was done incorrectly. Work on widening the entrance to the lot won’t be done until sometime in the Spring.

Steve continued all the perimeter parking spaces not only in the Groton Ave. lot, but also the Port Watson Street lot is public parking with the business parking spaces open to public parking after 5pm.

“The purpose for the two hours instead of three hours [for parking] is because a lot of the abuse factor [the city] was seeing were let’s say, I’m not picking on anything particularly, but let’s say a student was going to class. So they would go down [to the Groton Ave. lot] and park and go to a class and then push past those two hour points.” Mayor Steve said.

The City of Cortland also removed Odd/Even parking to allow for a designated parking area for residential parking. Mayor Steve says with the designated area, the city can now contact those permit holders if the area needs to be cleared for snow removal or any type of maintenance work.

Two hour parking in the Groton Ave. lot was increased by 30% with the number of residential parking spaces reduced, Mayor Steve said during his Mayor report, but noted the city is continuing to look at additional options on the parking situation in Downtown Cortland. For handicap parking, one additional space was created during the rebuilding of the lot last year.