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http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/today/metro_b3f862d8a455e1c50082.html

Lane Ranger: Tech parking plan 'asinine,' cop says
Joey Ledford - Staff
Friday, August 31, 2001

A city of Atlanta decision to allow parking for about 240 Georgia Tech students
along the medians of busy Tech Parkway has an Atlanta police major seething. 

"We're going to get some Tech students killed," predicted Maj. John Woodard,
commander of the Zone 5 precinct, which includes the former four-lane parkway
that is the Tech campus' southwest border. "It's the most asinine design I've
ever seen.

"If it was designed by a freshman engineering student, they ought to give him
an F," Woodard said Thursday. "You come around a curve, and all of a sudden
there are cars parked in your lane." 

Woodard's primary concern about the new Tech student permit parking, which
began this week, is that students will park and then cross midblock between
cars, making for a very "pedestrian unfriendly" situation. The street's right
curbs, he said, would have made far more sense for parking. 

Rodney Weis, Tech's director of parking, said Tech officials persuaded the city
to allow the parking, which helps alleviate a long-standing campus parking crunch
and ease pressure on the Home Park neighborhood, often besieged by invading 
student commuters.

"We're concerned about them opening their doors on traffic," Weis said,
explaining why Tech officials preferred left-side parking. "There's also MARTA
and Tech Stinger bus traffic there and we don't want to interfere with it by 
having bus stops parked full." 

"Losing a door is better than losing a student," countered Woodard. "And have
you ever seen anybody parallel park on the left side? It isn't pretty." Plus, 
 added Woodard, with the parkway now reduced to two lanes, the buses will back
up traffic.

Sally Flock, head of PEDS --- Pedestrians Educating Drivers on Safety --- 
came down on Woodard's side. "It's ridiculous," she said. "Why would they put 
it on the median?"

The decision apparently came from the city's Planning, Development and
Neighborhood Conservation Department. Commissioner Michael Dobbins didn't
return a call seeking comment. 


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