Seven Downtown Parking Spots Eliminated, Others Under Consideration By Select Board

The Select Board voted to eliminate seven public parking spaces downtown and add yellow lines blocking parking on portions of two additional roads on Wednesday, but deferred decisions on cutting another eight spaces.

Town officials say that the changes are needed for traffic safety and to better accommodate cars and buses.

The seven spaces that were cut include six at the intersection of Easton Street and South Beach Street, and another on Fayette Street. The Select Board also voted to add yellow lines designating portions of Waitt Drive and H Street as no parking.

But as it becomes increasingly difficult to find parking downtown, requests to eliminate spaces have become contentious. The Select Board opted to continue three proposals to remove spaces, amid concerns about the limited public parking available in town.

“Places that were never a problem before are becoming a problem,” Select Board member Matt Fee said. “I worry about pulling more spaces away when we don't have enough.”

Summer Street Church pastor Derek Worthington spoke against a plan to cut six spots in front of his church, one of the three proposals the Select Board did not approve on Wednesday.

“We absolutely support the idea of safety,” Worthington said. “However, the parking spaces on the chopping block are, for our community, the ones that have the closest safe access points for seniors, parents with babies, people with mobility limitations.”

The other two proposals that were continued followed what town officials described as a longstanding policy to allow the removal of a public parking space to facilitate a driveway with multiple spaces.

“I understand the math of that but it's still replacing a parking space available to anyone with parking spaces available to a single property owner,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said. “I'm just thinking about the policy in a different way as more and more of them happen.”

While proposals along those lines may have been routinely approved in the past, Wednesday proved different.

“Downtown, we're turning every yard into a parking yard, and so, philosophically, I can't support continuing to do that,” Fee said.

The Select Board also designated three parking spaces for accessible parking and voted to combine the town’s Committee on Roads and Right of Way and the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission’s Bicycles and Pedestrian Advisory Committee to form the Transportation and Public Access Advisory Committee.