Transportation, Parking Issues Up at Pasadena City Council Meeting Monday

Pasadena’s City Council will discuss three important transportation- and parking-related matters, including a proposal to exempt business from the city’s overnight parking prohibition, at Monday’s regular meeting on Monday night.

A Staff Report prepared by the Department of Transportation is recommending that the Council direct the City Attorney to draft an ordinance amending Chapter 10 of the Pasadena Municipal Code to provide an exemption from the overnight parking prohibition for businesses with early morning hours in Pasadena’s business districts. It also recommends the adoption of certain criteria to establish an exemption from the overnight parking prohibition. The City Attorney will also need to prepare a resolution establishing those criteria.

Based on research conducted by the Transportation Department, businesses have complained that the overnight parking ban, in effect in the city since the 1920s and amended a number of times hence, has a negative effect on a number of businesses that are open to the public in the early morning hours, especially if the businesses do not have access to convenient off-street parking.

The exemption, once passed, would allow them to use on-street parking near their businesses between 5 and 6 a.m. Currently, the overnight parking prohibition is from 2 to 6 a.m.

Also in Monday’s agenda are recommendations from the Public Works and Transportation departments to approve a contract for the installation of dynamic message signs and gateway signs at various locations in the city, and another contract for the upgrading of software at the city’s Traffic Management Center.

The dynamic signs project is intended to improve the wayfinding system throughout Pasadena to enhance the image of business district areas. Both departments are recommending that the City Council approve a contract award to Crosstown Electrical and Data Inc. for the project, at a cost of not over $852,000.

Meanwhile, the software upgrade at the Traffic Management Center is proposed to be awarded to McCain Traffic Control Products at a contract price not to exceed $410,410.

Other items in the City Council agenda include further discussions on the proposal to re-open Madison Elementary School, located at 515 Ashtabula Street in northwest Pasadena, for community use as a neighborhood during non-school hours; final projects recommended for completion under the Underground Utility Program; and a proposal to allow the use of the Rose Bowl for an international soccer match on July 27, 2016.

The ordinance to require payment of a city-wide minimum wage in Pasadena will undergo Second Reading at Monday’s Council session.