The phrase, "Call before you leave" has a special meaning for Jeanette Taylor. To her, it means calling the campus police because she's blocked in her driveway on Neely Avenue.
Anyone can park along the city streets that are just to the east of the Studebaker residence halls, as well as others surrounding the Ball State campus, and often streets get crammed bumper to bumper with cars belonging to students who want free parking.
For Taylor, it's those crowded streets that cause her driveway to become blocked. If it's not blocked, she's left with very little room to get out of her narrow driveway.
"Can you possibly imagine trying to get out of the driveway?" Taylor, who has lived on Neely Avenue for 55 years, said. "When I call the campus police, I say, 'This is Jeanette Taylor,' and he'll say, '. . . Neely, you're blocked in.'"
Because of the large concentration of people looking for free and easy access to the Ball State campus, a task force may present the Muncie City Council with an ordinance in June that would change parking regulations in neighborhoods surrounding the campus.
The regulation would restrict parking in neighborhoods near campus. Residents with cars not using off-street parking would need a permit for the zone they live in.
"There's a lot of cars on those streets that probably don't belong to students that are renting," Mayor Dan Canan said about the area just to the east of Studebaker.
Canan said the city looked to Bloomington and what they do with parking. Bloomington has established a Neighborhood Parking Permit Program, which zones areas surrounding the Indiana University campus and allows only residents who live within that zone to park in it.
"It's a good system that works very well for them," Canan said. "So it'd be foolish for us to try to create something out of thin air when they have something that works.
"It would also stop that mad rush of students that are trying to park closer to campus and jockey around on our streets ... The street parking is really not set up to be overflow parking for Ball State University."
Bloomington's system has been in effect for 11 years and Jack Davis, parking enforcement manager, said residents have no problem with the system; it's the people who don't live there who don't like it.
"It turned out it was a workable program," Davis said. "There's no question that it's an improvement."
Building Commissioner Jerry Friend said a system modeled after Bloomington's will work in Muncie.
In Bloomington, residents can buy a one-year parking permit per car for $15 each. Residents at each address also can buy one visitor's permit for $15. Permits must be renewed every year.
"This provides you and the person that lives there all the time a parking space," Friend said. "Not a very big cost either. A heck of a lot less than what Ball State would charge you for a parking pass."
The city also might eliminate parking on one side of some streets because of the concentration of cars, Friend said. For example, on Carson Street, where people park on both sides, only one car can drive down the street, which makes that and other streets like it dangerous.
Friend also said some people are parking in the rights of way on the north-south streets, causing cars to stick out in the street, and that problem will need to be addressed. All residents have alleys in the back and can put in off-street parking, so there should not be a problem with parking in the rights of way, Friend said.
The idea to change parking regulations came about from a housing task force that Canan said he established to look at issues in neighborhoods surrounding Ball State University.
The task force has meet three times and Sara Shade, the assistant city attorney who sits on the force, said it's finalizing a parking ordinance that could be presented to the City Council at its June meeting.
"In an ideal world, maybe we could have everything in place by August," Shade said. "I think that would be good timing to have some changes made before the students come back in the fall."
If that were the case, it would free up the streets, and Taylor wouldn't have to call the campus police because she's blocked in when she wants to go somewhere.
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
