NY: Rhinebeck officials mull parking regulations for Amtrak riders

Parking problems near the Amtrak station in Rhinebeck are acknowledged as the nightmare of legend that officials want ended.

The first step was approved Tuesday with the hiring of consulting firm LaBella to draft parking regulations at $10,400 during a Town Board meeting.

“Also to be included is…to look at any possible recommendations for one-way streets,” Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia said.

There is also expected to be a change in the free permit system used by the town for hamlet residents in a public lot.

“We’re only giving out parking permits to Rhinecliff residents and it’s a town-owned and funded parking lot,” Spinzia said. “So, we have to figure out what we’re going to do with that and also how we’re going to be able to offer overnight parking for…residents in the hamlet who don’t have their own overnight parking because overnight parking will be illegal in all parts of the hamlet.”

Parking, which has been a problem as long as residents can remember, has gone through varying degrees of complaints depending on how much of the official and unofficial Amtrak lots are available. Councilman Chad Kleitsch, a Rhinebeck resident, said there is currently an unpaved lot that is being used for railroad crews and off-limits to rail customers.

“There’s about 225 spaces in the Amtrak station, their long-term parking which has a limited number of spaces in the north part, in the southern part it’s about three-quarters of the amount, and from the Rhinecliff Hotel heading south they’ve cut off use of that section so that Amtrak can come and go with what they need to do,” he said.

“If there’s no parking spot then they come out and park wherever they feel like it,” Kleitsch said. “Enforcement…is where it really counts. Without it, you get parking on the streets of Rhinecliff for days at a time in front of people’s houses or on their property or in front of their driveway.”

Among concerns has been the lengths of stays on the streets, with some vehicles reported to have been parked for days, weeks and months.

“There are…instances of cars being parked in front of houses for weeks on end,” Spinzia said.

The problem of haphazard parking has become sufficiently difficult that even Amtrak reported in an email to Spinzia that its vehicles are having a problem getting onto the station property to line the parking lot.

“An old issue that has gotten worse recently is a matter of folks parking in that lower lot,” she read.

“Something needs to be done,” Spinzia read. “Maintenance trucks can’t even get into the lot…We contacted a towing company, but they can’t get their trucks in either.”

The email suggested putting an agreement in place for the town to authorize police to issue tickets for cars not parked correctly or too long in the Amtrak lot.

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