Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 4, 1995                   TAG: 9508040040
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV12   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

CHANGES IN RADFORD EASE EAST END PARKING

Among other things, the city will try to attract more motorists to the free - but underused - parking area off Third Avenue in the city's East End.

At the same time, Main Street Radford also will encourage downtown employees not to tie up parking spaces that paying customers could use and to park instead in the municipal lot, said Bud Jeffries, the downtown development organization's executive director.

"We're trying to make the best use of what we've got," he said Thursday. "Parking tends to be a volatile issue."

Effective immediately:

Spaces in the municipal parking lot at the Norfolk Southern station on Norwood Street will change from four-hour to two-hour parking, to encourage more rapid turnover of the lot's 24 parking spots.

Four of the five 10-minute spaces in front of the main post office will revert to two-hour parking spots after 6 p.m. on business days.

New and better signs will direct motorists to the city's 150-space free parking lot off Third Avenue, which intersects with Norwood Street at a traffic light. Main Street's inspections of the lot suggest it's "rarely more than half full," Jeffries said. During periodic checks, "the most we ever had in there was 74 to 78 cars," he reported.

The new signs "will emphasize free public parking," he said. "Right now, you've got a little sign that's very inconspicuous." Motorists may park in the lot until 2 a.m.

nA crosswalk has been designated to make it easier for pedestrians to and from the Third Avenue parking lot to cross Third Avenue at Pickett Street.

Main Street Radford's design committee, which includes downtown merchants, city officials and citizens, recommended the parking changes to City Engineer Jim Hurt and City Manager Robert Asbury, who approved them this week.

Jeff Jarvis, who owns Alleghany Cafe on Norwood Street, chairs the committee. "I think this will help ease some of the burden on parking spaces downtown," he said Thursday. But with finite room to create parking, "we'd like to see a parking garage go in downtown," he said, though the committee has no sites in mind yet.

Jarvis also echoed Jeffries' concerns that downtown employee parking could scare shoppers away. Studies have shown each downtown parking spot is worth $70,000 per year in retail dollars, he said.

"It adds up fast. If we don't have parking downtown, we push our clientele to the New River Valley Mall or elsewhere."

Jarvis said traffic flow downtown averages 17,000 vehicles a day, most of it 7 a.m.-7 p.m.

Jarvis and Jeffries acknowledged that other downtown traffic and parking issues continue to stymie merchants and city officials, including a lack of loading zones for trucks serving businesses along the south side of Norwood Street.

Right now, trucks unloading beer, soft drinks and other merchandise often park in Norwood Street's turn lane. City Council likely will have to resolve that and other issues, Jeffries said

"It's not an easy solution."