BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: ab 2067
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: Lowenthal
VERSION: 6/9/10
Analysis by: Mark Stivers FISCAL: no
Hearing date: June 15, 2010
SUBJECT:
Left-side parking
DESCRIPTION:
This bill allows the City of Long Beach, under specified
conditions, to implement a three-year pilot program to permit
parking on the left side of two-way local residential streets
that dead-end with no cul-de-sac or other designated turnaround
area.
ANALYSIS:
Under current law, drivers must generally park their vehicles in
the same direction as the flow of traffic (i.e., on the right
side of two-way roadways and on either side of one-way
roadways). The premise for this requirement is that it helps to
avoid head-on collisions with oncoming traffic that would be
risked when entering or exiting parking spaces that face the
flow of traffic.
Under current law, a driver may back a vehicle onto a street or
highway only when such a movement can be made with reasonable
safety.
This bill allows the City of Long Beach, by ordinance or
resolution, to implement a three-year pilot program to authorize
drivers to park vehicles on the left-hand side of residential
streets that dead-end with no cul-de-sac or other designated
turnaround area, if the city or county makes a finding supported
by a professional engineering study that the ordinance or
resolution is justified by the need to facilitate the safe and
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orderly movement of vehicles.
The bill limits the pilot program to streets perpendicular to
Ocean Boulevard beginning at Balboa Place and ending at 72nd
Place, with the exclusion of 62nd Place. The ordinance or
resolution does not apply until the city erects proper signage,
and the city must report to the Legislature no later than two
years after enactment of the ordinance or resolution on the
advantages and disadvantages of the pilot program. The city's
authority to allow left-hand parking sunsets one year after the
city submits this report.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose of the bill . According to the author, the Peninsula
area of Long Beach has a significant number of narrow, parking
impacted, dead-end streets with no cul-de-sacs. It is very
difficult for drivers to turn around on these streets, and
when they do, the likelihood of a fender bender accident is
great. As a result, residents and visitors have long parked
their vehicles facing the wrong direction on the street, in
violation of the Vehicle Code. The city has issued parking
citations for these offenses, frustrating residents who
believe it is safer to park facing the wrong direction than to
turn around. This bill allows Long Beach to permit left-side
parking on specified streets provided that it facilitates the
safe and orderly movement of vehicles.
2.Backing out into traffic . The issue raised by this bill is
not left-side parking on dead-end streets but the fact that
drivers who do not turn around on the side streets are forced
to back into the adjacent arterial. In the case of the
Peninsula, this means backing into four-lane Ocean Boulevard.
Moreover, because Ocean Boulevard itself dead-ends at the end
of the Peninsula, residents entering Ocean Boulevard from the
south must either back across two-lanes of eastbound traffic
to access the westbound lanes that lead into town and to all
other destinations or back into the adjacent eastbound lanes
and make a U-turn to head west.
The author points out that Peninsula residents have been
backing into the immediately adjacent lanes and making later
U-turns for some time without any significant negative safety
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impacts being observed and that neither the Long Beach Police
nor the city's traffic engineer foresees any detrimental
impacts from the continued practice. Nonetheless, it is this
concern that prompted the author to include language requiring
the city to make a finding supported by a professional
engineering study that left-side parking is justified by the
need to facilitate the safe and orderly movement of vehicles,
to require a report, and to sunset the city's authority.
Presumably, the city would still ticket drivers who back
across two lanes of traffic to reach the westbound lanes.
3.Arguments in opposition . The California Highway Patrol (CHP)
believes that parking concerns affecting a few small streets
in selected communities should be handled at the local level
without a change to state statutes. As an alternative, CHP
encourages the City of Long Beach to provide additional space
for vehicles to turn around on its one-way streets by
implementing a parking permit system or limiting parking to
one side of the street.
4.Previous legislation . In 2009, the author introduced an
almost identical bill, AB 213. Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed
this bill, stating, "This bill addresses parking concerns
affecting a few small streets in one city and can be handled
at the local level without a change to state statutes."
5.Technical amendment . The sunset of the authority in this bill
depends on the city submitting a report. If the city were to
fail to submit the report, the city's authority to permit
left-side parking would not terminate. The committee,
therefore, may wish to consider amending the bill to sunset
the city's authority three years after enactment of the
ordinance or resolution.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 73-0
Trans: 14-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
June 9, 2010)
SUPPORT: California Public Parking Association
City of Long Beach
OPPOSED: California Highway Patrol
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