With only days or hours left in the State Legislature session, Buffalo is pushing for special legislation to allow parking permit zones. The idea needs state permission and would, at least initially, only apply in the Fruit Belt community, which is tangled most days by an overflow of cars from the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
The Council, on Tuesday, held a special session to pass a Home Rule Message. It replaces an earlier and broader plan.
"Many of the residents that are close to the medical campus do not have driveways. And so these homes were built at a time when having a car wasn't that important. Now, when you have so many residents who have cars, they are not able during the peak times of the medical campus to park in front of their own homes," said Council President Darius Pridgen.
Pridgen says details are not yet decided but they would involve residents getting one or two parking permits, perhaps even painted parking spaces on streets. He is also pushing the medical campus to provide more parking, potentially even another parking ramp, which the campus isn't anxious to do.
The parking problem is likely to get worse with the construction of the new UB Medical School and the new Women and Children's Hospital.
The legislation joins the end of session logjam, although Pridgen says legislators are sympathetic to such local requests.
