Are you now, or were you ever, a frequenter or a passer-by of the intersection of Oakland Street and Belmont Avenue, the civic hub of Forest Park?
Your input is sought for consideration of the area’s accessibility and parking use. What is working here, and what isn’t?
This location features one of the city’s few post offices, a prominent library branch, a large middle school, one of the city’s few central supermarkets, numerous street-level retail stores, a large dry cleaning facility, other religious, civic and arts-related institutions, and a dense arrangement of housing units. The area is just a couple of blocks from the main entrance to Forest Park.
It also has a wide arrangement of parking spaces, both on- and off-street. The parking arrangement poses challenges and opportunities both for learning about how to do these things better, as well as for improving the situation.
In what ways have you coped with parking here, or observed others coping? How has the parking, traffic, cycling or walkability situation affected your use of any of the aspects of this civic hub?
For example, have you ever had difficulty parking here to go to the library, and thus gave up on this branch?
Have you had to park on the lawn instead of on the street or in a lot in order to teach in your classroom at the middle school, or load materials in or out of your building?
Has signage confused you?
Have you attempted to use the handicapped parking spot on Oakland, but found yourself blocked by garbage barrels out for pickup?
Have you ever attempted to stop in at the post office briefly, and found yourself parking a car in the fire lane just because you’re in a hurry? Or perhaps observed others doing the same?
What other idiosyncratic things are people doing here either because it’s human nature or because the spaces are configured in confounding ways?
How could pedestrians, cars and cyclists all be accommodated to better use of the many significant activities at this intersection?
Update: Ralph Slate posted a link to a 1910 photograph of the apartment building at 356 Belmont, partially pictured above. I offer up both that image as well as one I took coincidentally last week of the same building from basically the same vantage point.
