By Conrad Dudderar
Staff Writer
With some neighborhood streets becoming more congested, Yukon’s police chief is asking residents to limit how many vehicles they park in the street.
Yukon Police have been hearing recent complaints from citizens about too many vehicles parking in public streets.
“I understand those concerns; and we share those concerns,” Yukon Police Chief John Corn said.
“If you have open driveway space, please utilize it. Try to limit your on-street parking to the current ordinance language and timeframes. And help your neighbors out.”
To address safety issues, Corn was even asked whether the City of Yukon could adopt an ordinance to prohibit any parking on a street.
“The government – as the City – cannot say ‘you can’t park on a public street’,” Yukon’s police chief said. “I did some research. There’s no city that I can find that’s ever adopted an ordinance.
“It’s a public roadway. If it is a private roadway controlled by an HOA (homeowners association) or other organization, they can designate ‘no parking’ on the road.”
Yukon’s city ordinance does outline distance regulations that forbid a motorist from parking their car in front of a fire hydrant or too close to a stop sign.
Vehicles are not allowed to block a driveway and must be parked in the right direction, according to the code.
Vehicles parked on public streets also are supposed to be moved at least once every 24 hours.
Large Yukon fire trucks face challenges navigating between several vehicles parked on either or both sides of a city street.
“There are valid concerns when you have multiple vehicles parked in a street,” Chief Corn said. “It definitely does present more of a problem for our fire department and their response. Their rigs and those engines are much larger than our police cars.
“That could become a hindrance in the response of Fire to a medical call or a structure fire in those neighborhoods.”
Many Yukon residents also have difficulty backing out of their driveways – with traffic coming from either direction – because their field of view is impeded by cars in the street.
POTENTIAL HAZARDS
YPD officials want citizens to be aware these situations create potential hazards that can cause an injury or accident to them or their neighbors.
This on-street parking issue has grown in recent years because Yukon has more multi-generational homes.
These are houses with elderly parents living with their adult children or college-age students living at home instead of on campus, for example.
With most drivers having their own vehicles, what used to be a two-car household now may be a three- or four-car household.
“Some of our neighborhoods’ driveways aren’t very large,” Chief Corn pointed out. “The lot sizes are pretty good, but you only have 18- or 20-foot driveways. You can’t park that many vehicles in them.”
