The Leader

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The City of Milwaukee will turn 721 parking spots around campus into resident-only spaces under a new bill signed by Gov. Jim Doyle on April 14.

Senate Bill 329, commonly known as the Residential Preferred Parking (RPP) bill, allows the city of Milwaukee to "set aside 721 parking spaces for people whose residences are adjacent to a University of Wisconsin System campus, their guests, and commercial vehicles if the college creates 721 spaces on campus."

For every parking space created on campus, one will be taken away in the surrounding neighborhood. Although the bill specifies that 721 spaces will be put aside, the maximum number of spaces has not been set. A report released by two graduate students in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning said the number of spaces could reach 2,000 if UWM acquires Columbia St. Mary's Hospital.

"With everything that is going on in Wisconsin, I don't know why [Doyle] would sign RPP without seeing what kinds of problems are going on in the neighborhood," Annya Robertson, Student Association legislative affairs director, said. "We are already crunched for parking. This is a small way to fix a large problem in the short run."

The bill, cosponsored by state Sens. Alberta Darling and Jeff Plale and state Reps. Sheldon Wasserman and Jon Richards, ignited a controversial battle between area residents and UWM students desperately trying to hold on to parking in the neighborhood. Darling, Plale, Wasserman and Richards all represent UWM.

Peter McMullen, president of the Cambridge Woods Neighborhood Association, said that RPP has been in the works for almost eight years. RPP will take spaces from one side of the street in the designated area with the borders being Lake Drive (east), Cambridge Ave. (west), Edgewood Ave. (north) and Park Place (south). Major streets like Maryland Ave. and parts of Kenwood Blvd. would be excluded, McMullen said.

Before RPP goes into effect, the Milwaukee Common Council must meet to establish an ordinance and the city will need to create proper signage for the neighborhood. Although McMullen admitted that RPP could push some of the parking problems farther south of campus, he said that a desired goal would be to have the program implemented by fall 2006.

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