In an attempt to ease snowplowing efforts on Sundays this winter, Brookfield Village Manager Riccardo Ginex announced Monday night that he will limit parking during the daytime hours on Sundays.
Starting as soon as additional wording can be added to existing signs, Brookfield residents will be allowed to park on just one side of the street on Sundays whenever there is a snowfall of 2 inches or more.
“We can revisit this next year to see how it worked,” Ginex said. “It’s the easiest solution for us right now.”
Currently, Brookfield has no street parking restrictions on Sundays. During any significant snowfalls, that has proven problematic for the village’s Public Works crews because Brookfield’s side streets are so narrow.
“It’s a huge problem,” said Public Works Director William Brandt. “Many of our streets are only 28 feet wide and when there’s snow, people park even farther away from the curb. If we’re in a snowplowing situation, the majority of the streets we can’t get down with our large plows. Also, public safety vehicles, like ambulances can’t get down either.”
Brandt said that while those narrow streets can be plowed using smaller trucks, “it slows down the whole operation.”
“The bigger the truck, the more snow we can plow in less passes,” Brandt said.
Brandt said the Public Works Department will be using two teams of 10 employees each during snow removal operations in the village, and should be able to have six to seven plows on the streets at any one time.
With four fewer employees in the Public Works Department this winter after layoffs in the fall, Brandt said street plowing won’t be affected but that “we won’t have the luxury of getting to the alleys and business areas as fast as we did.”
Ginex said that while Brookfield residents may be ticketed if they fail to comply with the new Sunday parking restriction, the goal is to cars off both sides of the street, not to capture revenue from tickets.
“There will be a learning curve,” Ginex said.
Police Chief Thomas Schoenfeld said that the restriction would “probably increase warnings until people got used to it. Our goal is to get them to move, not to issue tickets.”
?”Bob Uphues
