The city has agreed to pay for part of the cost of resurfacing State Street and reduce the angle of parking stalls if the Illinois Department of Transportation allows it to keep diagonal parking on the four-lane highway downtown.
The offer is the latest in nearly two years of negotiating with the state over the fate of parking along Illinois Highway 38, State Street’s official name, between 1st and 4th Streets, the heart of the community’s central commercial district.
“It’s important for the merchants for people to be able to park easily in front of their businesses,” said Ald. Merritt King, who chairs the council’s Parking Committee. “Otherwise, people will just drive to a mall to do all their shopping.”
The controversy over parking began in 1992 when IDOT said it planned to eliminate diagonal parking when it resurfaces Illinois 38 because of what the agency perceives as a high accident rate caused by drivers backing their vehicles out into heavy traffic.
But King said the accident statistics the state is using are misleading because most of the collisions have been minor fender-benders.
City and business leaders argue that diagonal parking is easier, and if it were replaced with parallel parking or no parking, many potential customers would avoid downtown Geneva shops altogether.
King said the latest proposed agreement sent to IDOT calls for an angle of 38 degrees, compared with the existing 45-degree angle, to aid visibility.
King said his committee expects to meet with IDOT officials later this month to discuss the proposed agreement.
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