Fort Wright city administration is taking a close look at its municipal traffic code. The city is trying to “clean up” a code with parts that they haven’t examined in decades.
“We want to go through this so the code is truly an index of Fort Wright’s traffic ordinances,” Fort Wright City Administrator Jill Cain Bailey said.
They’re trying to address restrictive weight limits on vehicles, an out-of-date parking ticket schedule, among other redundancies and unnecessary, unenforced regulations. Currently, it is illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in Fort Wright.
“Clearly, we’re not enforcing that,” Bailey said.
Additionally, they have found that the citation for parking on the street during a snow emergency is not punitive enough to discourage the behavior. While Fort Wright Mayor Dave Hatter “despises” declaring snow emergencies, he agrees that they need to address the fee schedule. Hatter spoke to LINK about his philosophy on the municipal traffic code.
“We are generally hesitant and unlikely to do anything to restrict parking,” Hatter said. Police Chief Jonathan Colwell, Jill Cain Bailey, and John S. Brooking, Fort Wright’s legal counsel, plan to meet to go over each ordinance over the next several months.