Village may pump the brakes on parking on portion of Washington Street

Parking alongside Washington Street between First and Ninth avenues in Grafton might soon be a thing of the past as the village’s Board of Public Works on Aug. 8 discussed banning street parking on the road.

The proposed parking ban comes as the Wisconsin Department of Transportation prepares for a 2027 construction project. Amber Thomas, Grafton’s director of public works, told the board the DOT wants a parking ban in place to allow for effective planning. The DOT partially funds the project, but parking is not included in that funding.

“When the DOT pays or partially pays for a reconstruction project like this, they do not pay for parking lanes,” Thomas said. “The DOT doesn’t have parking on state highways. If we were in a rural section or in like a route to highway section, we would not have parking lanes. Any of the parking lanes that we put back in or we resurface will be full village cost.”

Trustee Dan Delorit is all for removing parking from the area. As an avid biker himself, he said parked cars can block bikers view when trying to turn onto the street.

“Trying to make a left turn off of Highway 60 can be hard,” Delorit said. “Going from 8th Avenue, taking a left hand turn is really hard to see after four o’clock because people park up and down the street.”

“If you’re in the right lane in front of our new taco stand by the old Clark station, you might even be able to get across the road in two lanes. But the problem is that people park after hours and then there’s (difficulties) so I’m really all for no parking on Washington on the north side — it would really improve our biking capabilities.”

The construction project would not allow for the road to house both parking and bike lines due to the limited road width.

The Board of Public Works decided to table the motion until more information is available. The board members want more information about the 2015 bike plan and to allow residents to voice their concerns to the Plan Commission.

“We haven’t notified any of the residents to see what they think about that,” board member Lisa Harbeck said. “We haven’t said, ‘Hey, come to a meeting, come and tell us what you think, or if you have any recommendations.’ I think there might be people who rely on parking on the street.”

Harbeck was also concerned about the way the resolution was written. It didn’t provide any start date and had conflicting information regarding what the DOT would or would not support with the parking lane.

“I think the resolution itself is really poorly written,” she said. “It’s not specific.”

Chairman Tom Krueger agreed with Harbeck, especially when talking about the resolution language.

“It would be very unfortunate if this thing just kind of flew under the radar,” Krueger said. “Then three years from when it becomes close to reality people are coming and saying, ‘When did this happen? How come I wasn’t notified?’”

The board unanimously voted to deter to the Plan Commission for a public hearing before revisiting the resolution.