Bolinas residents strongly support a parking plan that addresses the weekend chaos in town, according to the results of two recent online surveys. Over three quarters of the local respondents said the parking situation has a “negative or very negative impact on their lives in Bolinas” and 71 percent supported residential parking permit zones.
The Downtown Bolinas Parking and Traffic Committee, which formed last year to address the issue, met Monday night to release their findings from two surveys—one for locals, the other for visitors—conducted between Labor Day and Dec. 1. Nearly 500 participants responded to the survey, about equally split between locals and visitors.
Locally, 60 percent of Bolinas residents said they do not drive downtown on weekends because the parking is so rough. A majority of local respondents were in favor of installing satellite parking and a shuttle on busy weekends.
Of the 55 respondents who reside downtown, 38 have two or more cars in their household, and two respondents said they have five vehicles. Of the downtown residents with off-street parking, almost 43 percent said their driveways were occasionally or frequently blocked by illegally parked cars. Many of the comments made throughout the survey related to people living in their cars.
In the visitor survey, 79 percent of respondents described themselves as “dedicated repeat visitors” who come to Bolinas more than four times a year. A significant number of visitors surveyed hail from the Bay Area, which, for committee member Leila Monroe, came as a relief.
To her, it indicated a likely commitment to Bolinas and “a willingness to participate,” she said at the meeting.
A 120-page report comprising the survey’s responses will soon be added to the Bolinas Community Public Utility District’s website and a hardcopy will be available at the Bolinas library.
Looking ahead, the committee plans to continue gathering information, host a dialogue at the next Bolinas Community Action Network meeting and talk with Supervisor Dennis Rodoni. At the committee’s next meeting, on March 6, they will begin discussing potential remedies in order to start crafting a new survey centered around solutions.
“The survey answered the question that we have a parking problem and this committee should solve it by developing a plan,” committee member Zack Fuller said.