Rollingwood prepares for increased ACL traffic

Pryor said that despite minor setbacks, the parking and pedestrian traffic was manageable for the city and its staff, but last year an unexpected influx in traffic raised some serious concerns from both Pryor and Rollingwood City Council.

C3 hosts a number of meetings leading up to the festival to discuss any changes and to hear any concerns from neighborhoods surrounding Zilker Park. At one of these meetings, Pryor learned that last year neighborhoods around Zilker closed off parking completely, forcing more traffic into Rollingwood.

"We had more cars [trying to park in Rollingwood] than ever before," Pryor said. "It caught us off guard—the sheer amount of cars coupled with other events in the area—we just couldn't get enough people last minute to cover everything."

Pryor also said the crowd last year was very rowdy, but it might have just seemed that way because of the number of attendees and the lack of officers working the event.

"We had a significant [parking] problem along Vance [Lane] and Vale [Street] last year," Bone said. "If there had been a fire at any of the houses on those streets, I don't think emergency services could have reached them."

Pryor said the events of last year and the fact that ACL is expanding to two weekends this year were the driving forces for the changes the city is making to festival parking.

Disagreements

In a letter published in the Westlake Picayune June 11, Bone said ACL has lost its sense of direction and purpose.

Bone requested that C3 pay Rollingwood $150,000 for the six nights of "disruption" the event would cause the city, citing that Rollingwood received $25,000 for one night of inconvenience when the Rolling Stones performed in October 2006.

C3 responded with a letter of its own saying the mayor had not provided any information as to what the money would be used for or what costs Rollingwood was incurring to require such an amount.

C3 went on to say that although the company has no direct relationship with Rollingwood, the city is considered a valuable part of the Greater Austin community. C3 is also currently working with the Rollingwood Police Department to hire safety officers for the event.

"I've worked every ACL since the beginning, and C3 has always been accommodating, and the events themselves have always been manageable," Pryor said.

Pryor said C3 pays for the Rollingwood officers' overtime as well as any barricades that are needed for the event.

Expanded permitted parking

Rollingwood City Council approved expanding permitted parking areas at its June 19 meeting. Rollingwood residents living in the permitted parking areas are given four permits per house, and permits are not for sale to outside residents, Pryor said.

The expanded permitted parking area is much larger than the original area and is designed to encourage concert-goers to carpool and use the pickup and drop-off locations rather than parking in the city, Pryor said.

"We've pretty much permitted the entire parking area of past years," Pryor said. "Now it is just a matter of how far people are willing to park and walk. That is why we are trying to make it safe for pedestrian flow."

By pushing back the permitted parking to Wallis Drive, the cost to add more signs will increase, and more police officers will be required, Bone said.

The city plans to add about five more officers to work the event, he said. Pryor said these officers could come from Travis County, neighboring West Lake Hills or a number of other agencies.

"Our police have ultimately become worn out over the last few years because of the overtime they have had to work," Bone said.

The other reason the extra officers are not from Rollingwood is because Pryor does not want the festival to interfere with the regular duties of his officers, he said.

"We want to make it safe. That is paramount," Alderwoman Susan Jenkins said. "The farther we push back parking, the safer we make it. The more cars we have at the drop-off location, the more dangerous it becomes. We experienced this last year with people coming to pick people up and people walking to their cars. It creates a dangerous situation."

The plan Pryor presented to council included that one lane of Rollingwood Drive to be used as a drop-off and pickup lane ending at Vale Street and the other lane be used as a pedestrian-only lane.

"We are trying to encourage people to use the shuttle, but people like to be on their own schedule, and we understand that," Pryor said. "We aren't going to assume anything. We are just going to set up and make things as safe as possible."

Festival aftermath

During the Austin City Limits Festival, Rollingwood deals with a large number of cars parking in the city, and Rollingwood Police Chief Dayne Pryor said it is common for officers to issue a number of tickets, but towing vehicles is a rarity.

"We only tow if the car is posing some kind of hazard," he said.

Illegal parking is not the only thing police deal with, Pryor said. The city of Austin generally handles cleanup from the festival, but there are times when Austin crews are tied up at Zilker and cannot reach Rollingwood before many citizens begin their day, he said. In that case Rollingwood officers take to the streets, brooms in hand, to handle the trash from the festival.

"We put out a number of trash cans to help with the garbage, but that's not always enough," Pryor said. "We are happy to help out, but we aren't supposed to."