Public safety committee forms ad hoc group to tackle Edgewood parking, loading and pedestrian safety

Homewood City’s Public Safety Committee voted unanimously May 5 to form an ad hoc committee of residents and city staff to pursue near-term and longer-term responses to traffic, parking and public-safety problems in the Edgewood business district.

The committee motion, seconded and carried 4-0, directs city staff and community volunteers to develop recommendations (including possible ordinances, parking-permit programs and engineering changes) for review by the Public Safety Committee. The committee asked for an initial effort to produce options within about 30 days.

The action followed more than an hour of committee discussion and public testimony outlining repeated incidents in the Oxmoor–Saint Charles area, including large delivery trucks parking in designated loading zones during peak times, vehicles parked on both sides of narrow neighborhood streets so that emergency vehicles cannot pass, and at least one past crash involving a child pedestrian. Residents and business owners pressed officials for “teeth” in enforcement and a mix of traffic-engineering and regulatory responses.

Hannah Hightower, who said she lives at 306 Saint Charles Street, told the committee that “large semi trucks park in the loading zone on the first block of Saint Charles next to Odie’s, often in high-traffic times” and that the parked trucks “block half the street” so traffic meets “blindly head…