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New signs will restrict parking on five Village of Lansing roads now that Village Trustees passed a new traffic law Monday.  Previously parking was restricted on Bush Lane and in Shannon Park, a neighborhood behind the Ithaca Mall.  The new law lifts the restriction on Shannon Park, but adds four new locations including the 500 feet of Burdick Hill Road leading to its intersection with Triphammer Road, and the full lengths of Cinema, Sheraton, and Uptown Drives. 

The three latter were restricted for safety reasons to do with a higher anticipated volume of Sunday parking when the Vineyard Church moves into the old Bishop's Hardware Store space in the Small Mall.  Burdick Hill Road was added because of potential high parking volume near Temple Tikun V'or too close to the Triphammer Road intersection. 

Trustee Lynn Leopold says that parking is restricted on the three roads leading to the Small Mall to enhance safety there.  "Because it's curvy and windy and there is lots of bus stops there and a lot of pedestrians, it's a terrible place for people to park," she says.  "If we have to get emergency vehicles through there to the apartments, it's just crazy.  For us it was public safety all along."


The Trustees and Planning Board considered about 16 locations around the Village, but the number was cut to five key roads.  The newly restricted roads  were chosen due to an anticipated high volume of parking near religious facilities in areas where visibility or access for emergency vehicles could be restricted.  Deputy Mayor Larry Fresinski says that both the church and the temple worked with the Village Planning Board during their planning stages to manage traffic.  The synagogue has a field beyond the parking lot that can handle excess traffic, and the church has negotiated with the owners of the Small Mall and Triphammer mall to use their parking lots.

"They are places of assembly where everybody comes at once and leaves at once," explains Village Attorney David Dubow.  "It's not a surprise for those kinds of uses that the parking requirements are greater.  You look at the YMCA, the mall, or a doctor's office and there is an expectation that you're not going to have every parking space full because not everybody is coming at the same time."


Shannon Park was taken off the list because Trustees said the original reason for preventing parking is no longer an issue.  The issue is people parking on the street, then walking to the Ithaca Mall on a small path through the trees that form a buffer zone between the mall the the neighborhood.  Trustee Julie Baker says that some residents still perceive that as a problem, at least during the busy retail seasons.

About 20 new signs will be erected now that the law has passed.  With no police department, Village officials say that it is for the Sheriff's Department to enforce the law, and the Lansing Town Court handles citations and people challenging tickets.

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