Village Parking

The East Hampton Village Board should be commended for taking on a seemingly impossible job - the amelioration of parking and traffic problems in the business district. So far, it has spent $2 million on new parking fields and on reconfiguring the traffic pattern at the Long Island Rail Road station. The latter seems to have worked, but, as for parking, the board's efforts have fallen short of effectiveness. These long-term efforts go back to 1984, when the village bought 10 acres from the East Hampton School District for $331,000. New parking spaces - 400 of them - were created.

The board's controversial proposal now to charge long-term parking fees takes the parking needs of others besides railroad patrons into account. It is intended to free up spaces for employees of village businesses, who have been encouraged to park in the long-term lots but can't always find a spot, and for those heading to the new Learning Center, the now-expanded John Marshall School, and the soon-to-be-built RECenter.

An anticipated increase in train ridership also was a consideration, as a result of both population growth and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's upgrades, which are now under way.

It is reasonable for all who ride the train to expect adequate parking at the station they find most convenient. The debate is over which townspeople should pay for it, and how much.

We don't have to remind anyone that East Hampton is an affluent place. Taxes are relatively affordable for most of its property owners. Nevertheless, it isn't entirely fair for village taxpayers to foot the full bill for facilities for those who ride the train. The village expects little or no help from the railroad; it had applied for assistance when the area around the station was renovated in 1994, but was turned down.

A potential charge of $1,200 a year, as one letter-writer to The Star calculated the proposed fees could cost, is clearly excessive. This idea provoked another untoward one - that village merchants be pressured, perhaps even boycotted, unless the fees were abandoned.

We hope wiser heads will prevail on both sides at tomorrow's public hearing on the proposal to charge $5 a day for any car parked in the Lumber Lane long-term lot for more than 23 hours without a village beach sticker.

For its part, the Village Board should acknowledge that it is stuck with the primary train station for the surrounding communities and that its proposal went too far. Opponents of any fee at all should acknowledge that charging nonvillage residents something for the use of public facilities that village taxpayers have paid for is legitimate.

Someday the idea of creating a transportation hub at East Hampton Airport to include a train station and bus stops, along with plenty of parking, may come into being, as recommended by a state commission a few years ago. Another approach to funding adequate facilities for railroad patrons would be a modest surcharge on train tickets - along the lines of the surcharges added to airline tickets to pay for airport improvements. Meanwhile, fair overnight parking fees and practical methods of collecting them are warranted.

Perhaps, in addition to a single overnight parking fee (say $2 or $3), the village could issue parking permits for nonvillage residents by the week, month, season, and year. (As an example: $12 a week, $40 a month, $140 a long season, or $300 a year.)

As it deliberates, the Village Board should bear in mind the ramifications that imposing parking fees may have, such as encouraging residents to drive rather than take public transportation and compelling others to seek free parking on nearby residential streets.

Would that all who attend tomorrow's hearing do so in a spirit of compromise and leave with a feeling of accomplishment.