Graduation

Just a reminder that tomorrow is SIUC's graduation, meaning that there will be a lot of people driving through town that are not familiar with Carbondale's system of one way streets. I have already seen a couple of cars driving south on Illinois this week.

Save A Lot

Looks as if discount grocer Save A Lot is having financial difficulties and has put itself up for sale. No indication the company intends to declare bankruptcy, though.

Parking

More downtown parking going in where the Huffman Harker Funeral Home used to stand. Probably purchased and installed by Memorial Hospital since I have not seen a press release from the city indicating it is a Carbondale project.

State Science Fair

the Illinois Junior Academy State Science Fair will probably bring 500+ plus high school students and their families to town this weekend so expect to see a lot of people driving the wrong way on downtown streets.

Oakland Ave Closed

the city will close Oakland Avenue between Walnut and Freeman for the immediate future for replacement of water mains. We are trading off short term inconvenience for long term infrastructure improvement 

National Bike Month Events

Once again, Carbondale pedals furiously into National Bike Month. Here is a list of the events the city has planned.

Free Parking

City council is considering some form of free parking for downtown. Back in the 1990s, most downtown parking was free. However, in order to avoid paying for a parking sticker, a lot of students would park their cars in downtown and leave them for several hours. Putting in parking meters eliminated that problem. Now, with about 10,000 fewer students, this may be less of a problem.

Apparently a lot of businesses have employees that drive to work and need to park. If they do not get out to their parking space before it expires, they get a ticket.

There is a solution currently of course. Employees or their employer could purchase downtown parking passes for the staff from the city but I do not see a lot of people taking advantage of them. The city could also talk with Memorial Hospital about using the hospital's parking garage. If I recall rightly, the hospital has no objection to people parking on the upper floors of the structure. Of course, after parking there, it is still a good 10-15 minutes walk to downtown.