A New Project in Dallas Aims

It’s a dilemma just about every driver has encountered: You’re stuck on the freeway, and traffic is moving at a snail’s pace. Is there an accident, you ask yourself, or is it just typical congestion? Should you exit and take the feeder road, or stick with the interstate? A new, local program could help give motorists more clarity in just these types of situations.

This October, transportation officials in the Dallas area will debut a new program known as Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) along U.S. 75, which extends 28 miles from the city to its northern suburbs. Under the program, all transportation assets in an area are treated as part of a single system. In other words, trains, highways, surface streets and so on will be taken into account when deciding how best to keep traffic flowing, especially when something goes wrong. “What you’re going to experience is a more reliable trip, less congestion and less queuing,” says Koorosh Olyai, who led the ICM project while assistant vice president for mobility programs development at Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). Olyai now works in the private sector for the firm Stantec, but continues to assist DART on the project.

Dallas was selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation as a pilot site for ICM because it’s highly congested — the fifth most congested city in the U.S. — and it’s getting worse. U.S. 75 also represents the perfect place to test the concept, given the range of transportation assets along the corridor: a freeway with ultrasonic sensor, managed HOV lanes, a tollway, 167 miles of arterials, bus routes, a light rail line and 900 traffic signals. The highway itself carries about 250,000 vehicles every weekday.

Because traffic engineers would have planned for many different scenarios ahead of time, they’ll know exactly how to tweak the timing of the traffic lights on the frontage road or even arterial roads to accommodate the overflow. In the past, when there’s been a morning rush hour collision, officials might not have changed signal timing, or if they did, the changes might not have extended beyond a given city’s boundaries. Now, “as soon as we got notification the incident happened, we’d go in with just a couple clicks and re-time the signals,” Saylor says.

The focus of the program is more on coordination than technology, since things like loop detectors and speed monitors are largely already in place. A pre-programmed pattern, for instance, would ensure Richardson’s lights are coordinated with those of neighboring cities like Dallas and Plano, and the pattern would be designed to maximize efficiency of exiting freeway traffic while balancing the needs of other drivers.

If there’s an extremely disruptive situation, freeway drivers could be directed to exit and take the light-rail to work. Because the number of available parking spaces at park-and-ride facilities are monitored, as is existing light-rail ridership, drivers would only be directed to the facilities where there’s room to accommodate them.

The project is funded with $5.3 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation, a local share of $3 million and nearly $1 million in other federal funds. Officials say the benefits from things like travel-time savings and reductions in fuel consumption and emissions, amount to about $264 million in savings over 10 years. San Diego is also in the midst of a similar ICM study.

After a year, the pilot will be analyzed. If the results are promising, ICM could prove to be an inexpensive but effective tool for managing traffic conditions at a time when transportation agencies are short on funding. “There’s a lot of interest in implementing this,” Olyai says. “It’s logical. It’s low-cost. It’s using existing assets more efficiently.”

Greening our city and implementing a long-term approach to addressing climate change and reducing carbon emission encourages economic growth and helps improve our public health and our overall quality of life. Boston has made important strides towards mitigating our environmental impact and ensuring a healthy living and working environment for all of our residents, but tremendous challenges remain. I have developed a 6 point plan to address those challenges and make Boston a more sustainable city, which includes reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, promoting renewable alternatives, implementing the Diesel Emission Reduction Ordinance, and improving public modes of transportation. I believe it is one of the primary responsibilities of government to ensure that everyone, regardless of race or income, has a healthy environment in which to live, work, and raise a family.

While cutting carbon emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 is indeed an ambitious goal, I believe we can and we must achieve it. There is mounting evidence about the negative, long-term effects of climate change, including coastal flooding, higher temperatures, and more extreme weather. We must work to improve our environment in ways that will make people happier and healthier, such as promoting urban agriculture and ensuring that every Boston resident has access to clean water,Parking assist system, and green space.

As a city with a substantial amount of older infrastructure, Boston faces the dual challenge of incorporating green building practices into new construction while also retrofitting existing buildings to reflect advances in energy conservation practices. As Mayor, I will work with stakeholders at the federal, state, and city level, as well as private parties, to successfully implement strategies designed to lessen GHG emissions from Boston’s commercial, industrial, and residential buildings. I believe we should continue the innovative Renew Boston, reform the city’s zoning ordinances, and initiatives like the Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance because it not only creates jobs and gives us the power of information to measure and manage energy efficiently, but also is cost effective, good for our economy and for our environment.

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Take Their Trash With Them

National Park Service chief groundskeeper Anthony Migliaccio piloted his utility vehicle down the George Washington Memorial Parkway, surveying the good, the bad and the ugly in the government’s new effort to get visitors to do something that doesn’t come naturally: haul away their own garbage.

Along the parkway’s main stem—a lush, tree-lined Virginia roadway that runs from George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate to the forests of Turkey Run Park—there are now 55 fewer garbage cans. In their place are signs informing people that they are now expected to tote away their half-eaten hot dogs, soiled paper plates, crushed soda cans and the like.

The idea behind project Carry In-Carry Out, explained Mr. Migliaccio, is to free up the park service’s trash haulers to pursue more noble beautification projects, such as flower planting.

But training the masses to stuff their own refuse back into their cars, purses and strollers is causing something of a stink.On a recent day, one lonely can in a busy park overflowed with visitors’ refuse. Meanwhile, a nearby dispenser of free plastic trash bags—each printed with a plea for folks to retain their own waste—remained full.Bus driver Ronnie McGinley ambled over to the overloaded bin, carrying a ultrasonic sensor plastic water bottle. So why not keep the vessel on the bus? “I don’t want it rolling around,” said Mr. McGinley, who seemed a bit nonplused by the voluntary rule. “You want it?”

Still, the trash initiative presses on. The D.C. region’s pilot program calls for replacing garbage bins from 27 locations along the parkway with twice as many signs asking people to own their own messes. It’s a tall order.

Each year the George Washington Parkway—a 32-mile national park/commuter route dotted with historic sites, memorials, picnic groves and wildlife refuges—draws about eight million visitors along with their dogs, diapers, paper plates and plastic sporks. It’s the fifth most-visited feature in the national park system. Visitors create some 380 tons of solid waste each year.

Carry In-Carry Out was launched on Earth Day in April, and now is in the middle of a six-month period that, overall, parkway deputy superintendent Jon “J.J.”James refers to as “bumpy.” Mr. Migliaccio describes it as being in “the teething stage.”

Touring his turf in the rain recently, Mr. Migliaccio pointed out a pair of waterlogged boat shoes, a cooler lid, and an intact ceramic serving dish. There was also a drive shaft, hubcap and a couple of dozen of plastic water bottles. Near the Reagan National Airport exit, inexplicably, was an abandoned white hazmat suit. Nonetheless, Mr. Migliaccio took a rosy view. “Not bad,” he pronounced of his findings. “Most of this stuff would be here even if we did have cans.”

His rounds, though, exposed other challenges. Mr. Migliaccio drove past flocks of tourists at the Marine Corps Memorial, famed for its monument memorializing the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. The site draws four million visitors a year. When the trash-free program began—and some cans disappeared—people rushed to the area’s Porta Potties to relieve themselves of their trash.

That’s a big no-no. Porta Potties are normally pumped out with a hose. If they’re filled with Parking assist system, as opposed to human waste, the contents must be removed by hand.”Dipping trash and dog waste out of Porta Potties is a hazardous activity,” says Mr. James. “That didn’t continue very long before we got the cans back out there.”Indeed, after removing five trash cans from the memorial area, the park service put two back, then removed one.

Next problem stop: the aptly named Roaches Run, a waterfowl sanctuary on the Potomac whose parking lot was strewn with pizza boxes, cups and newspapers tossed mostly by taxi and limousine drivers who sit in the sanctuary’s parking lot, awaiting calls to nearby Reagan National Airport.

Cab driver Esmail Abedini rolled down his window, releasing a miasma of food smells. “I have my plastic, but some people don’t think this way, so I’d like to see the trash cans back,” he said, holding up a clear cellophane bag with scraps of his lunch at the bottom. A wilted sprig of fresh mint and a pine-tree shaped air freshener lay across the car’s console, but accomplished little.

Parks are different, of course, and Mr. James, who began his career in the Great Plains states, has lofty notions about inspiring people to comply. “If we could teach them to look on parks as sacred, like the Nez Perce do, it would be interesting,” he says.

Mr. Migliaccio’s team collected just 22 tons of trash from his territory in May, the first full month of the program—or five tons less than the same month in 2012. Still, the park service has had to alter its can-free vision as time passes.

There are no plans to remove trash receptacles from busy recreation areas such as Gravelly Point, where visitors fish, boat and eat while watching planes land and take off at the airport. There, despite the continued presence of about 25 cans, “on Monday morning it looks like Woodstock after everyone went home,” Mr. Migliaccio said.

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Columbia dog park could open in fall

Columbia could have its first dog park as early as September if the Columbia Association Board of Directors approves $55,000 additional funds for the project, CA’s Director of Community Building and Sustainability Jane Dembner said.Dembner and Dennis Ellis, CA’s Director of Capital Improvements, said the additional funds, which would bring the total cost to $135,000, are needed to complete the project.

“Recent cost estimates and bids indicate the $80,000 originally budgeted for the dog park construction will not be sufficient to complete the project,” Ellis wrote in a memo to the CA Board. “The budget figure was approved early on in the process before a site was actually selected and without the benefit of detailed cost estimates.”

Since the original funds were approved, CA has chosen a 3-acre site in Harper’s Choice in between Rivendell Lane and CA’s SportsPark. After receiving approval from the Harper’s Choice Village Board, CA submitted plans to Howard County’s Department of Planning Zoning, which approved them earlier this month, Ellis said.

The approved plans have resulted in more finite cost figures, which Dembner said exceeded the ultrasonic sensor.”We’d like to complete the dog park now. We are ready to go, but we need some extra funds because there was never an understanding of how much the full project would cost,” she said.

Plans for the park call for two fenced-in areas — a two-acre space for large dogs and a seven-tenths-acre space for small dogs. It also will have two water stations, which will be used by owners to wash their dogs before leaving the park. Drivers can access the park through a side road off of Rivendell Lane. The side road, which will be repaved, will also have 19 parking spaces.

The park, which will be open from dawn to dusk, also will have a pay box staffed by a full-time employee, according to Sean Harbaugh, assistant director of CA’s Open Space Management.A fee structure for park-goers has not been finalized, but Harbaugh said it will be similar to the system used by the county at Worthington Dog Park in Ellicott City.

“There will be an annual registration fee to use the dog park, or people can choose to pay a nominal daily fee instead,” Harbaugh said. “CA is working on what those rates will be.”

While the board could have approved the fund transfer at its July 25 meeting, it pushed off the decision until August after requesting that Ellis deliver cost estimates for permeable concrete, which is better for stormwater run off and the environment.In addition to repaving the side road, the parking spaces and access road, the plan also calls for concrete walkways to and around the park.

“I’m an advocate of the permeable pavements because I’ve seen them successfully done by the County as well as other agencies,” said Board member Alex Hekimian, who suggested the change.”At some point we have to start thinking about doing something similar at CA. This location might be a good place to start because it doesn’t require a whole lot of expense.”

Ellis estimates that shifting to permeable concrete could double the cost from $20,000 to $40,000. There also are concerns the permeable concrete could cost more to maintain.Plans for a second Columbia dog park, built by the county and located at Blandair Park in Oakland Mills, are still being drawn up, according to Raul Delerme, bureau chief of capital projects for the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

Pay for parking at the parks, visitors must shove exact change and cash into metal posts known as “iron rangers.” Accounting and budgeting software lacks consistency throughout the state from park to park. Park rangers are still required to have law enforcement experience, even though much of their work involves providing education, visitor assistance and community programs. And state parks has yet to create a working relationship with the state travel and tourism commission to market the parks.

A bit of modernization and thoughtful reworking could help the cash-strapped park system regain its footing as it searches for ways to become economically sustainable, according to a couple of study commissions seeking to revamp the department.

Major General Anthony Jackson, the new state parks chief who stepped in after former director Ruth Coleman resigned in the midst of a budget scandal, has been more blunt about the department’s outdated practices. While speaking at a Regional Parks Association forum on June 15 in Oakland, Jackson said that state parks hasn’t made a cultural or business change since the 1950s and continues to lack a marketing or business department.

Jackson said he will create a new business and marketing department in the next couple months and will begin promoting the parks more aggressively with state park passes for sale at Parking assist system, as well as television advertising campaigns.

“We haven’t done a good job of marketing what we have, and need a broader tourism strategy,” said Stuart Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission, a bipartisan state agency that also offered recommendations to improve California State Parks.

And it’s no wonder the parks department ran into budgeting problems when it lacks a consistent department-wide way to track its revenue. Drown called the accounting system “antiquated.”

He added that state parks also needs to modernize its view of the nonprofit and citizen partners it collaborates with by taking their concerns and ideas more seriously as their involvement in management grows.

Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, said she hopes the Parks Forward Commission uses the Little Hoover Commission’s findings and Jackson’s action plan as a starting off point to make solid improvements.

School hires curriculum director

The board heard a presentation about the Student Council trip to Las Vegas to attend the National Association of Student Councils National Conference. They then approved the previous meeting minutes and the updating of Policy 414 which concerns staff payment for jury duty.The board approved five legislative priorities for the Iowa Association of School Boards. They want the IASB to focus on development of the Iowa Core, sharing incentives for schools, supporting allowable growth, supporting greater flexibility for use of the management levy and opposing unfunded mandates.

In transfers, Kandi Moorman transferred as secretary at Garfield to secretary at Central, Emily Sayres transferred from kindergarten aide at Central to secretary at Garfield, Tom Belloma transferred from maintenance at Lakeview to distract-wide maintenance, Brandon Clark transferred from special education aide at Lakeview to maintenance at Lakeview, Cindee White transferred from special education aide at Centerville High School to PK-12 library aide, a new position, and Merry Dudley transferred using her recall rights from a special education aide at Lakeview to an open K-2 Title I teaching position.

Several new employment contracts were also approved. They included Alexis Kauzlarich as seventh grade volleyball coach and Rita Teater as custodian at Lakeview. Laura DePrizio was recalled to fill a position as elementary special education teacher and Jeri Bradley was recalled to fill a new elementary teaching position. Rose Moon, Lakeview secretary, also had a slight contract adjustment okayed.

The board also approved contracts for the new curriculum director and the new activities director/high school assistant principal. Rhonda Raskie was tapped to take the curriculum director position and Greg Fisher was chosen to be the new activities director/assistant principal. Raskie is currently a secondary special education teacher within the ultrasonic sensor. Fisher has had experience as a high school principal at Gilbert and Charles City, as a middle school principal at North Cedar and as an assistant principal at Applington-Parkersburg.

The board then heard from each of the principals about student assessments. PK-2 principal Dianne Fatka and 3-6 principal Terri Schofield each spoke about the DIBELS testing being used to track student achievement throughout the year. The tests are given three times a year to test reading abilities and clear progress can be seen throughout the year with students moving into proficiency. Schofield said the test also matches well with results that the school received from the Iowa test, with a 93 percent match between those who tested proficient on DIBELS and those who were deemed proficient on the Iowa test.

Junior High principal Bruce Karpen and High School principal Roger Raum spoke about trend lines. Each of the principals had looked back through several years of data to track the growth rate of students. In both of the principals presentations, the students showed good growth in most areas.

The board accepted a bid from Hill’s Sanitation for garbage pick up in the next year. They also approved fuel bids from MFA and Bratz. A milk bid was accepted from AE Dairy and a bread bid was accepted from Bimbo Bakeries. The board also approved EMC for their business protection insurance. The board approved renewing the district’s subscription to Iowa School Finance Information Services. They also approved a service agreement for Power School, the district’s student reporting system, with Grant Wood AEA. The board also approved the concurrent education services agreement for 2013-2014 with IHCC.

The board received bids for parking lot updates at the high school and Lincoln Elementary. There were four bids for each project. The board accepted the low bid for the high school project from Evers Construction of $68,400. The board decided to hold off on the Lincoln project for now.The board approved changes to the K-2 handbook and also okayed renewal of the employee assistance program. They then approved sports official’s contracts.

The board then heard administrator’s reports. Fatka said she had met with the preschool teachers to get ready to take over the preschool administrative duties in the upcoming school year. Schofield reported that there is an open sixth grade teaching position, but she believed it would be filled quickly. Karpen reported that the district was approved for six AmeriCorps positions for the Parking assist system, two at Lakeview, two at the junior high and two at the high school.

Each position requires a $6,500 match from the district. Raum reported that he was in the process of filling the open math position at the high school and had started to conduct interviews. Buildings and Grounds/Transportation Director Mike Zintz updated the board on the search for a new Suburban. Zintz informed the board they could purchase a new vehicle valued at around $48,000 for about $33,000 at government price. Superintendent Tony Ryan also updated the board on the sale of the Cincinnati and Mystic Elementary buildings. According to Ryan the sale is still in progress. Zintz said the contents of the buildings as well as some things from Central and the high school will be sold at auction. The board then approved financial reports before adjourning.

Brown was a ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, as well as the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He was also a member of the Veteran Affairs Committee and the Committee on Small Business.Brown also served as a state representative for three terms and as state senator for five years. Tickets for the dinner are $50 and available through Sweeney’s re-election campaign at ElectJFS.us or at the door.

The office is located temporarily in Room 109 of the Hartleb Technology Center. Initially, services will be limited to individuals who want to apply for unemployment insurance benefits through the state’s new online application system. During this transition time, other one-stop career center services will be available at the center located in Lawrence at 439 South Union St.

This temporary move is a cost savings measure necessitated by the federal budget cuts. However, it also provides ValleyWorks and NECC the opportunity to better serve the unemployed and underemployed in the area, connecting them with valuable education and training opportunities. In the fall, pending approval from the Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board (WIB) which charters ValleyWorks, the career center will move to a larger space on campus, where a broader menu of career development services will be offered.

An open house for the program will be held at NECC Riverwalk, 360 Merrimack St., Building 9, Entry K, Lawrence, on Tuesday, July 30 from 4 to 7 p.m. College to Career staff will assist students with the college process, facilitate access to support services, and help them find a job when they have completed their certificate program. Certificates can be completed in as little as eight months, and the curriculum is strongly focused on the workplace, including an internship. Programs include health care, computer information sciences, and advanced manufacturing.

Mary Campbell of Methuen, who was a hairdresser for 30 years and most recently an administrative assistant, learned about the program at the ValleyWorks Career Center last fall and quickly enrolled. She will complete a Certificate in Help Desk Technology this fall, and plans to continue on for an associate degree while working full-time. Campbell is confident that her internship in the IT Department at Northern Essex will lead to a job troubleshooting computers and she is also interested in data management. “I never thought I would be at this point,” Campbell said. “It’s truly an amazing feeling.”

DEA head office receives six-star rating

It is the first government building in South Africa to achieve a 6 Star Green Star SA rating and also the first 6 Star-rated green building in the City of Tshwane. The project was awarded the highest score for a large commercial office space of this magnitude by the GBCSA.

The DEA is demonstrating its commitment to market transformation in the built environment of South Africa. “This is an exceptional illustration of the public and the private sector working together to deliver an out- standing example of green building,” says GBCSA CEO Brian Wilkinson.

The certification signifies leadership from the DEA in green building and shows its dedication to sustainable design by all its stakeholders in this sizeable public–private partnership (PPP) project.

“The building has specific targets for energy and water efficiency and an industry-first, sophisticated energy-consumption mechanism that has never been implemented in any other project in the parking system. It also uses renewable energy and a unique facilities management system that [includes] a rigorous penalty regime to reward operational efficiency and penalise poor performance,” comments Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa.

A significant benefit of this PPP structure is that contractual obligations for all participants ensured that all costs, timelines and green specifications were clearly outlined and successfully met during design and construction.The PPP structure will also ensure that the building is operated optimally over the next 25 years so that it stays green throughout its life span and achieves the environmental and resource savings envisaged at the outset.

“Through this building, we will set an example for other organisations, which will, of course, benefit the environment and future generations,” says Molewa.Once construction is complete and the building is occu- pied, the DEA head office will also submit documentation for its ‘As-built’ Green Star SA rating, which ensures that the original intentions in the design phase have been adhered to.

The project used three- dimensional building modelling extensively upfront, enabling the professional team to identify and resolve potential issues before they emerged and to improve integration and coordination.The project brief specified that energy consumption in the building should not exceed 115kWh/m2 a year, which was a goal that required optimal building orientation from the start and intense modelling and efficiencies.The roof of the building is almost entirely covered with solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and will supply almost 20% of the building’s energy needs.

The northern parking area hosts a large concentrated PV system, which tracks the sun during the day and supplies power to the electric vehicle (EV) charging station for the DEA’s EV pilot project.The building has also been designed to consume 30% less water through several water- saving devices installed throughout the Parking assist system, such as a rainwater harvesting system and water-wise indigenous plants for landscaping with efficient irrigation systems.

The landscaped entrance includes a vertical green wall, roof gardens and a wetland component facilitating storm- water runoff. A natural veld component surrounds the parking and building areas.Green buildings represent responsible investment and reduced liability. The finan- cial benefits of green buildings are realised through savings on energy and water over the long term.

Mitch Kupchak selected Derrick Caracter in the June 2010 draft and then allowed Jordan Farmar to depart in free agency. He was replaced with Steve Blake and then management secured deals with new players in Matt Barnes and Theo Ratliff.The old Lakers teams from the 1980s are the last ones to appear in four straight NBA Finals. They accomplished the feat from the 1981-82 season to the 1984-85 campaign.

The regular season coupled with the playoffs are particular taxing both physically and emotionally. Consequently, teams that keep their core mostly intact simply have not been able to make four consecutive trips to the championship round.The early 1980s Lakers added big contributors in James Worthy and Byron Scott during their four-year finals run.

Conversely, the Purple and Gold made a few tweaks in the 2010 offseason, but they simply were not sufficient. Kupchak traded Sasha Vujacic in December 2010 for the services of Joe Smith, but the new Laker barely got into games.The Lakers were swept out of the playoffs and also lost out on head coach Phil Jackson who entered retirement at the conclusion of the series. The 11-time world champion’s departure left the franchise without a headman.

The Laker brass sought to dissociate themselves from the former coach’s influence and essentially jettisoned all members of Jackson’s coaching staff. Brian Shaw was an assistant on Jackson’s coaching staff at the time and shared as much with Sports Illustrated’ Ian Thomsen.

The Purple and Gold settled on a coach with a strong defensive background in Mike Brown. The new Laker coach had previously enjoyed some success with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the front office felt as though he could steer the team back to its glory days.

Los Angeles faced some complications with their plans because the league faced a work stoppage. After a long and arduous process, a new collective bargaining agreement was signed in December 2011 and the Lakers made a splash on the very same day by acquiring Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets via trade.David Stern famously vetoed the move and the players involved in the trade essentially remained with their teams. However, Odom was one of the players that would have relocated based on the trade and felt betrayed in some respects.

Amid reports of his unhappiness, the Lakers quickly traded their top reserve player to the Mavericks. Odom’s departure was a huge blow for the team given that he typically logged heavy minutes late in games alongside Pau Gasol.

Free Northumberland car parking plan proposed

A major change has begun in Northumberland which will see controversial car parking charges scrapped – apart from in those communities which want to keep them.Drivers visiting popular market towns will be able to park free for the first time in many years if long-running campaigns by traders for the removal of charges are supported by councillors and residents.

The Labour administration on the county council is delivering on its pre-election pledge to allow local communities to decide if they want to have parking fees or not.Initial meetings are being arranged with town and parish councils in places where charges are currently in force – including Morpeth, Rothbury, Corbridge, Hexham, Berwick, Holy Island, Bamburgh, Seahouses, Beadnell and Alnwick.

These will lead to the development of community-based parking plans, including the option of getting rid of charges unless local councillors believe they should stay for traffic management purposes.The process is aimed at ending what many claim is the unfair current system, which involves charging in rural communities and free parking in major towns such as Ashington, Blyth, Bedlington and Cramlington.

Charles Robinson, who chairs Morpeth Chamber of Trade’s car parking working group, said he was hopeful the abolition of charges was now in sight.“Morpeth should have the opportunity to enjoy free car parking, like our neighbours in Ashington and Blyth have done for many years.

“We would still like to see a county-wide scheme of free parking rolled out, rather than it being left to individual town and parish councils, but at least the Labour administration is now getting on with the issue.“We are in discussions with our partners in Berwick, Alnwick and Hexham because this is a county-wide issue.

We are very much aware that there needs to be traffic management, but a disc-controlled free parking system worked very well in Morpeth until charges were introduced.“It is nonsense to suggest that free parking will lead to traffic chaos.”Labour county council leader Grant Davey said: “We promised to give local people the final say over free Car park management system, and that’s what we intend to deliver.

“We’ll provide support so that town councils such as Berwick, Hexham, Morpeth and Alnwick can get on with a locally produced traffic management plan which suits local needs, not the needs of County Hall.“We’re hopeful that both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will decide that it’s now time to take the politics out of parking and get behind this plan.”

Peter Jackson, leader of the council’s Conservative group, said they would have introduced free parking for all Northumberland residents, leaving just visitors to pay.He said the process adopted by Labour was complicated and bureaucratic, and there was no timescale on it. “We fear there will be strings attached to this offer of free parking, and no consistent free parking across the county,” he added.

Parking in the city — on public or private property — is obviously a parochial matter. But I choose to tackle it today simply on the issue of transparency and accountability. After all, there is no existing government agency that is directly tasked to “regulate” public and private parking fees, and to an extent this puts the public at a disadvantage.

Take the case of Rockwell’s Power Plant Mall, which only recently announced changes in its parking rates. The mall used to charge a fixed fee or flat rate of 45 for every parked vehicle, regardless whether weekday or weekend/holiday. And obviously, without time limits.

Moving forward, the same rate will apply but only on weekdays. During weekends, however, when more people patronize the mall, the same 45 rate will be good only for so many hours, and exceeding hours will be charged extra. Moreover, motorists that insist on parking in no-parking zones will be fined 1,500.

Going by the “current” or prevailing pricing systems in other malls in the city, the Rockwell formula is actually fair. Ayala Malls already charge 40-45 for the first few hours, and then it charges extra for exceeding hours. And, penalties for parking in no-parking zones are also nothing new.

But taken independently of what is the prevailing pricing system in the market, the unilateral action by Power Plant management begs the question: what significant improvements have been undertaken with respect to mall parking that actually merit a fee/rate increase? Frankly, I haven’t seen any.

And one cannot exactly claim that a motorist “pays” for security, or insurance coverage for damage. Private parking property owners issue disclaimers with respect to their responsibility and liability in such cases. Simply put, one pays a fee only for space, but actually parks at one’s risk. Perhaps the rate increase is due to inflation?

Then there is also the question of whether or not business establishments should be legally mandated to provide a minimum number of “free” parking slots for patrons, at least for persons with disabilities,Parking assist system, and other similarly disadvantaged groups. Add to these facilities where people can comfortably await public transportation.

This is an old issue that has even gone through congressional hearings. And obviously, private property owners do not violate any laws by arbitrarily raising parking fees. They are well within their rights to impose rates or fees that they deem necessary. And as users of such parking spaces, motorists should pay.

But is there no ounce of public interest involved in this that car owners have no choice but to simply grin and bear any increase in parking fees? One can always argue that anyone who can afford a car should be able to afford parking. But borrowing the argument in favor of rent control for housing, and with parking spaces primarily being rental spaces, shouldn’t there be some regulation here?