New Parking Regulations

This coming Sunday, the Tenth Press article will address the new parking boundaries for 2012. I am copying the article here. It is also going out today as an eblast. You can also access it at the church website. The new parking placards will be included in the bulletin.

Being Good Neighbors

By Patrick J. Canavan, Administrator

With the New Year, we have new parking restrictions. These are reflected in Tenth’s 2012 parking placards inserted in today’s bulletin. These are the placards you should now use on your car dashboards when parking in the city on Sundays while attending Tenth. Please discard old placards.

The intent of the new restrictions is to open up the bike lanes fully on both Spruce and Pine Streets at a time of day that is busy for the neighborhood and a lighter time of use for us. The greatest effect of this will be seen as we will no longer park on these east/west streets (Spruce and Pine) between the hours of 2:00 pm and 5:30 pm, effective January 15. One other change is that there will no longer be any parking spaces available to us on 18th Street north of Spruce Street (between Spruce and Rittenhouse Square). This is in effect now.

Here is what the Sunday schedule looks like for those Tenth attendees parking their cars around the church:

8:00 am–2:00 pm: full use of all streets in our permitted area for morning worship and programs

2:00 pm–5:30 pm: only the north/south streets in our permitted area for afternoon programs

5:30 pm–10:00 pm: full use of all streets in our permitted area for evening worship and programs

So how should a Tenth attendee manage these changes? Admittedly, it could take a few weeks for us to internalize these new parking guidelines. A major adjustment an individual can make is to keep one’s personal schedule for the day in mind when first parking in the morning. If one is staying for an afternoon event, it would be wise to park on a north/south street to avoid the need to re-park after morning worship. If one is attending morning worship/programs and going home afterwards, it would be best to park on either Pine or Spruce Street.

Here are a few things to be aware of if you park your car on either Pine or Spruce Streets:

1.      Make sure you park your vehicle within the white line marking off the larger interior section of the bike lane. This will still make the smaller outside lane available for safe bike use.

2.      When leaving your vehicle or exiting your parking space, please look back for cyclists using the outside lane or street before opening a car door and crossing the lane. This may seem simple and not worth mentioning, but a small thing like this can avoid serious injury.

3.      Continue to observe basic parking laws (15 feet away from fire hydrants; 25 feet from intersections; no blocking of driveways—see placard or parking.tenth.org for more).

4.      Please refrain from any verbal (or worse) confrontations with neighbors or cyclists. Graciousness will be noticed and has a powerful impact in a culture that often celebrates aggression.

Of course, we still have discounted lot and parking garage rates ($7 for the lot at 17th and Pine; $5 at the Penn garage in the 1700 block of South Street; $4 for the lots at 15th and Naudain and at 15th and South). We continue to be grateful to the managers of these parking lots for giving us generous discounts.

Please refer to parking.tenth.org for all other parking details, including those for special events. Remember that additional special event parking information is provided there throughout the year.

By doing these simple things, we are serving and cooperating with the neighborhood that has been our friend and home since we began worshipping as a congregation at this corner 154 years ago.