Tinley Park’s parking regulations are in need of a revamp, especially for residential areas that have stricter rules because of proximity to downtown, Mayor Michael Glotz said Tuesday.
“The ordinance is like a thousand years old,” Glotz said.
Glotz told the Village Board he’s particularly concerned about parking restrictions on residential streets far from the village’s downtown district along Oak Park Avenue. The downtown extends from 166th Street to 183rd Street, an area that includes the village’s Metra station and the nearby Harmony Square.
Harmony Square, 6700 North Street, opened last July as a concert and event space, allowing the village to host larger concerts, but also raising resident concerns about parking and long lines.
Glotz said he’s received several calls from residents complaining about parking signs in front of their homes.
“I drive by there and I just shake my head every time I see these homes are nowhere near Oak Park Avenue, and they have parking limits in front of their house,” Glotz said. “I get it on the events, but how far should that actually go out?”
Marketing director Donna Framke said the issue is two-hour parking signs in front of some homes that were originally installed to deter people attempting to avoid commuter parking fees.
Commuter parking downtown around the Metra station is paid, but becomes free on weekends and after 10 a.m. on weekdays, according to the village’s website.
“When we had a much higher number of commuters who would come, that’s where all of the genesis of all of this was,” Framke said. “The ordinance sort of supported the commuter parking area, so that people didn’t have cars parking in front of their homes because they hopped on the train to go downtown for the entire day.”
However, changes to commuter behavior have made that less of a concern, Framke said.
Other communities in the south suburbs have also seen decreases in demand for commuter parking. Flossmoor recently held a public meeting about a proposal to reimagine its little-used South Commuter Lot as a public park.
“We’re still getting a lot of use in ours,” Framke said. “But it’s not necessarily the amount of commuters that were coming down back in the day when they were coming five days a week. By 9 a.m., by 8 o’clock a.m., those lots would be full.”
Police Chief Thomas Tilton said a former traffic safety officer had put a plan together on the village’s parking situation that was awaiting review.
“I just want to make sure we’re having clarity on the topic,” said Trustee Kenneth Shaw. “We have event parking, we have general parking and then we have overnight parking. Three separate, completely separate topics.”
Overnight parking on any street in the village is prohibited between 2 and 5 a.m., according to Tinley Park’s website. Residents can request permission to park overnight on certain dates “necessitated by unexpected circumstances such as driveway repairs or overnight guests.”
Those exceptions are limited to three consecutive nights, after which the village will begin to impose fines, according to the website.
The commuter lots and other downtown parking locations are highlighted as parking for events taking place at Harmony Square in a map on the venue’s website.
Any changes to parking will have to address all of those elements individually, Shaw said, though it makes sense to discuss them together.
Current proposals are leaning toward barring parking on one side of the road during large events, instead of the two-hour time limits, Framke said.
Glotz agreed some parking restrictions are necessary, including to ensure that emergency vehicles can get through when events are happening.
“Those streets weren’t made to have all those people downtown. You can’t get engines down 173rd, I mean, it’s a problem for safety for our first responders to get up and down these streets in that area when we have our concerts,” Glotz said.
Glotz asked that a proposal on parking be ready for the next Village Board meeting on Aug. 5.
“I anticipate in the next couple weeks we’ll probably have something more,” Framke said. “We’re going to formalize a recommendation for the Village Board so they’ve got something to take a look at and make some decisions on.”
E-bikes
Residents also raised concerns around electric bicycles. State legislation providing ground rules on e-bike regulation takes effect Jan. 1.
Resident Clayton Kelly said people speeding on e-bikes was a major issue on Gaynelle Road, and one that police are limited in responding to.
“They’re not gonna chase the e-bikes and the mopeds that’ve been running up and down the street, because if they’re chasing them and there’s an accident, we know where the liability’s going to fall,” Kelly said. “I understand that, but we’ve gotta do something in that neighborhood before somebody gets killed.”
Tilton said enforcement of state laws on e-bikes is complicated.
“It’s very nuanced,” Tilton said. “You have to read the electric engine on each of them to see the variations in them, and each one of them has different restrictions, so it’s very difficult for our guys to chase them down and not know which one they are until they stop them.”
Tilton said police are working with village trustees to assemble an ordinance that would clarify village rules on e-bikes and make enforcement easier. Oak Park passed a similar ordinance last week.
Trustee William Brennan agreed and said he has had personal experience with the e-bikes being a problem.
“The e-bikes are honestly out of control,” Brennan said. “My son was kind of ran off the road by an e-bike, and he was on his regular bike.”
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