Relief is just around the corner for motorists who live near the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. As WBFO's Chris Caya reports legislation has been approved that allows the city to issue residential parking permits.
The bills passed by the state Senate and Assembly on Friday, the last day of the legislative session, should help free up parking spaces for residents in Buffalo's Fruit Belt neighborhood.
"That area...is a historic district. A lot of these homes don't have driveways of their own. And so the residents, naturally, are parking in the street," State Senator Tim Kennedy said.
Unfortunately as the Medical Campus has grown, Kennedy says, employees, patients and visitors began crowding out Fruit Belt residents. Under the new permit program, he says, residents will get designated parking.
"And it's all going to be free. Free of charge. Nobody's going to get charged anything. And the way it's going to work is that there's going to be specific designated parking areas on these residential streets that only residents of the Fruit Belt neighborhood can park on. And then there's going to be areas that are open to everybody," Kennedy said.
The new parking permits, he says, will go a long ways towards restoring the quality of life of Fruit Belt residents.