Residents Give Mixed Signals to Tampa Avenue Parking Ban

Afternoon parking restrictions are being instituted on a four-mile stretch of Tampa Avenue in Reseda, prompting sighs of relief from some residents and expressions of frustration from others.

Signs went up Monday and will continue to go up today barring parking between 4 and 7 p.m. on both sides of Tampa Avenue between Parthenia Street and Ventura Boulevard. Violators of the restrictions will be issued warnings for the next three weeks and will be subject to tickets and towing after that, said Nick Cerulle, an associate engineer with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

Ray Wellbaum, a transportation engineer with the department, said parking is being restricted only during the afternoon because a recent city study determined that restrictions are unneeded during the morning rush hour.

The parking restrictions are part of a 2-year-old effort to reduce rush-hour congestion on streets throughout the city, Cerulle said. Parts of other San Fernando Valley streets--such as Nordhoff Street, Ventura Boulevard, Roscoe Boulevard and Lassen Street--already have had rush-hour parking restricted, he said.

Some residents of the strip affected by the new restrictions expressed support for the measure.

“I love it,” Mildred Sullivan, 71, said of the sign installed Monday near the front door of the house where she has lived for 24 years. “When I saw it this morning, I said, ‘Oh, thank God!’ ”

“It’s a very good idea,” said John David, 44, a resident of Tampa Avenue for 10 years.

He added: “We see the traffic pile up here in the evenings.”

Other residents, however, expressed skepticism.

“It never bogs down,” said Nancy Hood, who has lived on Tampa Avenue since 1986. “Only at Christmas is there a problem.”

“I wish they wouldn’t do it,” resident David Ray said of the new restrictions.

“The people who park here are the people who live here,” Ray said.

Other opponents said they doubted the parking restrictions would alleviate what they described as the real traffic problem on Tampa Avenue: speeding.

“The street’s wide enough,” said Bill Grgurich, 74. “What they ought to do is put some bumps in the road to slow the traffic down. It’s a nuisance. The street’s a freeway.”

Other Valley streets on which the city is considering instituting or extending rush-hour parking restrictions include Victory Boulevard between Louise and Winnetka avenues, Topanga Canyon Boulevard between Prairie and Marilla streets, De Soto Avenue between the Simi Valley and Ventura freeways, and Ventura Boulevard between Reseda Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue and between De Soto Avenue and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Cerulle said.