It has been 18 years and 109 days since the city’s pledge to build the West Branch Library.
Prior to the first Cardinals football game held at the University of Phoenix stadium as your Yucca district councilmember I insisted that senior management create a “Neighborhood Protection Plan” for neighborhoods adjacent to the stadium. I, and the residents, worried about game day parking on neighborhood streets and cut through traffic to get to or to leave the stadium. Such a plan was created and implemented. Many of you in adjacent neighborhoods may remember the Resident Placards distributed to every household adjacent to the stadium. After years of attendance most of the fans have been trained and do not park in neighborhoods or cut through them anymore. Barricades at the entrance to adjacent neighborhoods are still used on game days just to remind fans to park elsewhere.
This time the city has created its own parking mess, not adjacent to the stadium but rather in neighborhoods adjacent to Heroes Park, located at the northeast corner of 83rd Avenue and Bethany Home Road.
Despite the lack of amenities at the park for there are only a few basketball courts, a splash pad, a tot lot and ramadas, the park is still heavily used and loved, especially on weekends. So, what’s the problem?
There are not enough parking spaces at the park. As a result, people park in the dirt along the periphery of the park, especially along 83rd Avenue.
The city, in its wisdom, decided this would never do. Instead of creating more parking spaces, direction was given to park rangers to tell people that such parking was prohibited and they would have to move their vehicles or suffer their vehicle being towed away.
Where did the park rangers tell people to park? They told people to park in an adjacent neighborhood on the south side of Bethany Home Road. Last weekend over 75 vehicles parked in that neighborhood. There were so many cars that neighbors came out of their homes to see what was going on while seeking an explanation for all of the cars lining their streets.
To make matters worse, the city has created a major safety issue. Park visitors often with children in tow, having parked in the neighborhood, now have to cross a major arterial street, Bethany Home Road, to get to the park. Bethany Home Road has a lot of traffic at all times of
Street identification signs
day and night. Vehicles traveling eastward approach the pedestrian crossing area from a hill with a curve providing no sight line to see pedestrians. There is no signage, no crosswalk, and no markings for vehicular traffic warning of heavy pedestrian crossings. Quite frankly, it is just a matter of time before a pedestrian is injured or killed trying to cross Bethany Home Road to get to the park.
What was the city thinking? The city has a policy that does not allow Cardinals game day parking in adjacent neighborhoods yet now is directing park patrons to park in an adjacent neighborhood? Why?
Instead of creating a permanent solution by developing, at the very least, temporary parking
Southwest Heroes Park
spaces on 60 acres of unused dirt and weed-filled Heroes park property, it directs park patrons to park in a neighborhood? Is it because, once again, a problem at this park in west Glendale is not a priority? It is ironic that the city could throw $32 million at its Cardinals parking problem but appears to have neither the motivation nor the money to fix a relatively minor parking issue. Is it a reflection of the city’s reluctance to spend any money on infrastructure improvements in west Glendale? Or was it through sheer incompetence that such a wacky solution was created? If this situation occurred in north Glendale it would last about 30 nanoseconds.
Where is Councilman Chavira? He had been told of the problem by local residents. Why hasn’t he demanded that this parking problem and safety issue be solved? Once again, we have an invisible councilmember who is not listening to his district residents much less advocating for an immediate remedy. Our district deserves better representation than it has received from Sammy Chavira during his term of service. Oh wait, Sammy doesn’t appear to serve his community interests…only his own. Is it because there isn’t any money to be made for Sammy in creating a parking solution?
Glendale…fix the parking problem you created.
© Joyce Clark, 2016
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Great points Joyce. I think part of the problem with such issues, is the anonymity given to those who made the decisions. Is it possible to find out who was involved? Why not print their names so citizens can contact them about such decisions?
I’m not asking you to do it, just wondering how to find out.
Mark, I’m not sure it would work but perhaps a Public Information Request, very specifically and precisely worded, could generate such information.
It is a shame and disgrace that Glendale ‘s Heroes Park has 66 acres of nothing but tumbleweeds and dirt. What makes it even worse is people who come to the park do not have enough parking spaces to accommodate them. Easter was a nightmare for 50 to 75 people . The park ranger and police were having the people come back to their cars and move them off the park ground(dirt) and park across Bethany Home Rd and then walk back to the park. We were told the ranger was rude to the people who really had no idea they could not park where they did.
April 12 at 6 pm sharp many of the citizens will be addressing this issue. Our goal is 100 people attending the meeting 59th ave and Glendale park in the beautiful garage.
Please bring the kids because it is about them.
My two cents………if you built a building and had parking – you have to follow the code and provide a certain amount of parking spaces before they give you the permits to build, etc. Obviously this must not apply to what the city builds! Very sad indeed and I agree about it being dangerous to have to park on a major road and cross the street to enter the park! Joyce would you please give us a heads up reminder on FB next Tues about the meeting? Thanks.
Joan,
Yes, I will be blog posting about the meeting on April 12.
I can guarantee as they build more in the park they will be providing more parking spaces. You have to remember their plans for that park. Regional library, archery range, they can’t overcompensate on parking now and then have to tear it up all to place those facilities there.
There are 275 parking spaces at that park. Sahuaro Ranch probably has 600+/- and Foothills probably has around 400+/- so given the amount of amenities currently at the park there is enough parking. It’s not fair to include holiday traffic in with regular day to day traffic, nobody can predict that.
However, if they did not wish for people to park in the dirt, they could have blocked off the area put up NO PARKING signs and used barricades to block it off. They also could have hired an off duty police officer to make sure that families were safely crossing the street, given that it was/is a holiday. I imagine people have to rent out the ramada’s so Parks & Rec should have had a good idea of how many people would have shown up.
Also, lets not bring Ocotillo into the Yucca district fight, as it has been in the past. Ocotillo has a library and an aquatics center. Yes, I realize that their borders meet, however, lets concentrate on one district at a time.