Parking plan finds success

SANDPOINT — The city’s foray into a trendy new parking technique has not resulted in mass panic, but Sandpoint officials will wait until next spring before calling the project a success.

The recently completed Third Avenue revitalization project between Main and Cedar not only widened the sidewalks and added new streetlights, but introduced local drivers to back-in diagonal parking.

Unlike its more conventional counterpart, head-in diagonal parking, the new technique requires drivers to pull ahead of a parking spot and reverse into it. The system has become popular in cities like Seattle and Portland, and Public Works Director Kody Van Dyk said he is following suit for safety and space reasons.

By adding back-in parking, the city has more than doubled the number of parking spaces on Third Avenue, and Van Dyk said the technique is safer because it doesn’t require drivers to back out into oncoming traffic.

Van Dyk said he hasn’t heard any complaints about the parking and said it’s not a difficult skill to learn.

“I don’t have a problem backing up, so it wasn’t a problem for me and I haven’t heard from anyone who’s had any problems,” he said.

Unless the new technique is a disaster this winter, Van Dyk said back-in parking will likely continue to grow throughout Sandpoint.

“If it’s a success over the winter, we would like to look at changing Church Street when we restripe next year,” Van Dyk said.

So far, the tentative plan is to replace current head-in parking spaces with back-in spaces, but Van Dyk said the city will also look at bringing back-in parking to streets that currently offer only parallel parking.

“It depends on what the right of way is and how it works through urban renewal as we rebuild these streets,” he said. “Would we work to try to get more diagonal parking or would we try to get more sidewalk? It’s going to be a balance and I’m not sure how that’s going to work out yet”