TRAVERSE CITY: Accessible parking is focus for West End Beach

May 15—TRAVERSE CITY — West End Beach in Traverse City needs parking lot repairs. City commissioners want more beach-accessible parking.

The need and the want will come together this year to result in enhanced beachfront access for people with disabilities, city officials say.

City Engineer Anne Pagano told city commissioners Monday night that she would redraft a conceptual drawing that had reduced the lot's parking spaces by half of what it had been before high waters undercut it, while doubling the wheelchair lift-compatible spots from one to two.

A short-handed commission agreed that it previously had asked for much more, with Commissioner Heather Shaw saying she favored all-accessible parking in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. "I think that this lot would be best served for people who cannot walk to the beach, I'd like to see all ADA with one spot for a drop-off and pick-up."

Shaw echoed Commissioner Tim Werner in noting that people who can walk could park along Bay Street or at Veterans Park, south of the beach and across Grandview Parkway.

The commission, with members Mitchell Treadwell and Mi Stanley absent, reiterated its support for adding as many ADA-compliant parking spaces as possible while leaving one or two as loading zones.

At issue is how to repair a parking lot that was damaged by waves and high Lake Michigan water levels starting in 2020.

Commissioners previously had balked at designs they reviewed in December, one calling for a rain garden and topsoil planted with dune grass, among other plant types, atop armor stone to prevent future erosion and handle parking lot runoff.

One particular element in the plan — plastic geotextile material — drew fire for placing plastics on the beach that could break down into microplastics. Cost estimates of up to $275,000 also prompted commissioners to cap any parking lot work there at $200,000.

That amount is likely to limit what the city can and cannot do at the site, City Manager Liz Vogel said. She also reminded commissioners scrutinizing the layout and footprint that the project they requested in their December motion was a repair, not a complete redesign and rebuild.

Mayor Amy Shamroe agreed, adding that while she recalled asking for more ADA-compliant parking than Monday's drawing included, she also remembered acknowledging that a more extensive overhaul would be costly. And that could result in the project being held back even longer.

"We recognized that this, if we redo the whole lot, it becomes not a $200,000 and not a four-week project," she said. "That's not what's been before us and not what we voted to move forward back in December."

But any rebuilt parking lot should also incorporate a better environmental standard, Shamroe said. She agreed with Werner that commissioners wanted something more than simply rebuilding the lot to its pre-washout design, but something less than ideas that Werner in December panned as "over-engineered."

The beach also is set for a bathroom replacement, with the city netting a $200,000-plus Natural Resources Trust Fund Grant, city Parks and Recreation Supervisor Michelle Hunt said. That grant will not only replace the circa-1950s bathrooms at West End Beach, but add one near the volleyball courts west of the Open Space.

Both prefabricated bathrooms should arrive by late September, Hunt said, mentioning that, in its grant application, the city described the parking lot as a trailhead convenient for using the Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation Trail, either to reach downtown or head north on the Leelanau Trail.

Commissioner Heather Shaw said the parking lot seemed too small to serve as a trailhead while maximizing ADA-compliant parking.

She also asked why the path couldn't be rerouted between the parking lot and beach. Using permeable pavement for the path would meet two goals: rerouting the trail that currently cuts through the parking lot with no separation from vehicle traffic, and scaling back on impermeable surfaces on city parkland.

Pagano told commissioners the trail in the design is a 12-foot-wide pathway that Michigan Department of Transportation will build between the parking lot and Grandview Parkway when it redoes the highway there — planned for 2025, according to MDOT.

The city engineer agreed to redraft the plans to emphasize beach access for people with disabilities, and to consider other requests as well. That included Werner's suggestion to move some armor stone about 10 feet to the south and shrink the parking lot's footprint.

Pagano also agreed to email commissioners her redesign to address any further issues before bringing it back to a future meeting for final approval.