City Considers Compromise in Downtown Parking Issue

During public comment at last night’s Galesburg City Council meeting, various downtown business owners expressed their concerns in regard to parking issues on Main Street. Council recently rejected a petition that had been circulating–one that asked city administration to enforce two-hour parking as a means to make Main Street parking more readily available for customers.

That petition has been backed by Q’s Cafe Owner Walt McAllister, who stood alongside GloBar Smoothies Owner Megan Robbins last night. The owners feel there is a lack of customer parking available because of downtown employees and tenants parking on the street.

Administration has all but denied a request for two hour parking, citing the high cost of enforcing it. Advisory signs asking patrons to leave street parking open to retail customers was suggested, however, City Manager Todd Thompson says there would be no real way to enforce the measure.

City Engineer Wayne Carl says city administration will work with the group to find a compromise.

“We’re going to go ahead and meet with this group,” says Carl. “There was no change at this time, mainly because we have different ideas that different people have proposed. There’s pros and cons associated with it. We definitely want to help small businesses downtown. We definitely want to see them grow. We just want to make sure one location doesn’t affect somebody else negatively.”

With the anticipated development of the National Railroad Hall of Fame and what seems to be more business in the downtown area, Aldermen Corine Anderson and Jeremy Karlin added that keeping tabs on how to deal with more traffic will be important for future planning.