Businesses concerned after bid to prohibit commercial street parking bans all parking
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – The City of College Station is working to figure out how to handle commercial trucks parking on city streets.
This issue was brought up by some businesses located on Ponderosa Drive near Highway 6 and Longmire Drive. Issues of safety and a lack of access led them to City Hall to voice their concerns about those commercial vehicles.
Within just a few meetings, the council passed a new ordinance to prohibit all parking on the south side of Ponderosa Drive nearest to Highway 6.
“They ultimately voted on something that the business owners didn’t even ask for, you know, it was a little bit more strict than what we really were wanting to see implemented,” the owner of D&D Moving, Dan Daniels, said.
D&D Moving is located right at the corner of Ponderosa Drive. Daniels says he has the same frustrations with commercial vehicles parking along the roadway and would support a city-wide ban. But, prohibiting all parking on the roadway has now put his business at risk.
Penske moving truck renters can return their trucks overnight. This requires customers to park the truck along Ponderosa Drive until it is moved onto the D&D property the next morning.
With the new restriction, Daniels says his business is in jeopardy.
“D&D Moving is the largest Penske dealer for local revenue in the state of Texas,” Daniels says. “We had our District Manager from Penske come in today and had a discussion with me, that if they did permit parking on the south side of the street that there would be a good chance that they would terminate our agency due to the fact that not having sufficient parking returns for the customers.”
The City of College Station says they are working on a solution to this ban and also plan to take a look at a possible citywide ban on commercial vehicles parking on city streets.