Brookfield officials are planning to simplify the village’s rules surrounding snow-related parking bans and when they go into effect.
Trustees could pass an ordinance at their next village board meeting on Oct. 12 that would allow village staff to implement a snow parking ban whenever two inches of snow are recorded in Brookfield.
The village’s existing snow parking ordinance requires that two inches of snow fall within a 12-hour timeframe between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. or between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. the next morning.
Deputy Police Chief Terry Schreiber said the time requirements had led to situations in the past where the village could see about three or four inches of snowfall without implementing a parking ban due to the slate resetting when 8 o’clock arrived.
“It is very complicated for residents to understand when something is going to be in effect and when it’s not. It’s also complicated for us to figure it out every year as well,” Schreiber said at the Sept. 28 village board meeting. “[We’ve gotten] questions of, ‘If the news said that we got three or four inches, why isn’t the ban in effect?’ Then we have to explain the times.”
Under the new ordinance, once a snow parking ban is called, it will stay in effect until 8 p.m. the following day so that both sides of the street can be plowed by public works staff, one side on each day of the ban.
Bans called on Saturdays will continue to persist until Monday, as both Saturday and Sunday call for cars to be parked on the same side of the street.
For those who are entirely unfamiliar, Brookfield’s snow parking bans call for all cars parked on the street to be moved to one side of the street, alternating based on the day of the week. If a snow ban is in place on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, cars must be parked on the south or east side of the street, and vice versa for Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends. Bans can only be called between Dec. 1 and March 31.
The village will implement new measures to alert residents the night before if heavy snowfall is expected, giving them to chance to move their cars before the storm rather than during it, Schreiber said, though citations will not be given out until a parking ban is actually called by the village.
Brookfield will also add a widget to its website to allow residents to track snowfall and see if a parking ban has been called. The widget will also let residents track the movements of snowplows to see when their street would be, or had been, plowed, Public Works Director Lauren Moore said.
Schreiber said the new rules were devised by the police and public works departments to be simpler while maintaining the existing time periods that residents have grown used to and not requiring the village to update its streetside signage, which could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
He said the existing rules created “extremely staff-intensive” situations where public works staff would constantly measure the height of fallen snow leading up to 8 a.m. or 8 p.m. during a snow event to see if a parking ban could be put into effect before the next 12-hour timeframe began.
Members of the village board seemed supportive of the proposed changes. Village President Michael Garvey said the changes didn’t seem too “dramatic” but that they would ideally increase resident compliance and make things easier for the public works employees tasked with plowing Brookfield’s streets.
“I know people find this hard to believe, but we want compliance. We don’t want the ticket revenue,” Garvey said. “We would rather have every car move than gain the revenue from the tickets because, in the end, it probably costs us more time and money when Lauren’s crew can’t get down the street and have to keep circling. One car can affect an entire block getting done.”
