At the Mayor and Council meeting on Tuesday, we unanimously passed a resolution prohibiting street parking inside the cul-de-sacs in Brunswick Crossing that have an island in their middle (i.e., where there’s a circular curb inside the cul-de-sac rather than just pavement). Since the vote was unanimous, I won’t dwell too long on it, but because it does affect some residents directly I think it deserves a brief explanation of why I voted for it.
The reason for it is to make sure that emergency vehicles can enter those cul-de-sacs. In particular, as I understand it, parked cars along the curb in the “island” cul-de-sacs prevent firetrucks from getting in there. Although the firehoses are long enough that they can reach the houses on the cul-de-sac even if the truck has to park outside of it, the ladders mounted to the top of the trucks aren’t. For those ladders to reach a second-story window, the truck needs to pull up close to the house.
So, you can see why that’s important. While it’s an inconvenience not to be able to have guests park on the side of the cul-de-sac when you’ve got company over, it would be a tragedy if you lost a pet or, God forbid, a loved one because your car or a neighbor’s car prevented firefighters from coming to the rescue in time.
It’s also worth noting that we limited the parking prohibition to cul-de-sacs with islands because those are the ones where the issue arises. In cul-de-sacs without a central island, emergency vehicles can get in and maneuver a bit even when there are cars parked on the side. The idea here, at least from my point of view, was to take the minimum restrictive action needed to effectively address the public safety issue.
You can find more info in the Mayor and Council agenda packet for 2024-11-19 linked below, on pages 7-9. We amended the resolution during the meeting to specify cul-de-sacs with islands in them. That’s because, although the island cul-de-sacs are all in Brunswick Crossing, not every cul-de-sac in Brunswick Crossing has an island. At some point soon, Public Works will install no parking signs on the islands and paint the curb yellow at the entrance of the affected cul-de-sacs.
Click here for background on the item up for vote.