WESTFIELD – At a meeting of the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities last night, Ward 2 City Councilor Ralph Figy reported that, after meetings with Police Chief John Camerota and the rest of the city’s Traffic Commission, three spots have been identified in the downtown area as future handicap parking spaces.
The eastern side of Elm Street in front of the Rinova Building, western side in front of 146 Elm Street, and the western side of Elm in front of the Church Street Commons – the second space north of the fire hydrant – will soon be designated as handicap parking spaces.
Commissioners Michael Reinhagen, Chair Madeline Nicoletti, Andrea Pianka, and Norman Smith discuss the Elm Street’s handicapped parking availability last naight. (Photo: Peter Francis)
In a memo issued to Director of Public Works Jim Mulvenna, Camerota issued a declaration adopting the plans for the handicap parking spots to enable the city to be in compliance of Title 11 of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
According to Figy, the project can’t get off the ground until the Commonwealth does some work at the state level.
“We’re not going to pass a city ordinance until we get the state regs in,” he said. “This is a beginning, not the end.”
“It’s just to get us started,” he said. “Most of these are protected by the jut-outs (on the street), so there is protection there.”
Figy said that the spots are strategically located within the city’s downtown.
“It was difficult to do it because everywhere we liked, there was a tree or a fire hydrant, something that would keep a sidegate from coming down,” he said. “We found the best we could and spread them out to give people access to quite a few different things in the downtown.”
Once the current senior center location on Main Street is vacated, the drop-off area in front of that building would become another potential handicap parking space.
Commission Chair Madeline Nicoletti said that the progress being made on behalf of Westfield’s disabled is not surprising.
“I went to the last Traffic Commission meeting and made an impassioned plea, and handed out a number of ADA regulations at that time,” she said. “(Traffic Commission member) Brian Boldini and I spent about two weeks going back and forth emailing. I had explained to him that all the cities and towns in Massachusetts, to our knowledge, had handicapped parking on major streets.”
“It also helped that Medeline has a handicapped van that is different from mine,” said commission member Andrea Pianka. “We could explain from our own perspective on how we work our vans on the street.”
