A recent article about parking at Mickler’s Landing revisited some central issues that St. Johns County residents addressed in the past…most notably, beach parking and access to our "public" beaches. Today, those issues are mainly unresolved. A few years ago, St. Johns County commissioners essentially acquiesced to homeowners on the Ponte Vedra Boulevard by giving them generous land appeasements that could have been used for public street parking thereby lessening the problem of public parking in Ponte Vedra Beach. In essence, our commissioners denied parking spaces and beach access to local residents—and visitors—who aren’t members of the private clubs in Ponte Vedra Beach. Now there is an outcry about limited parking—only 250 spaces at Mickler. And by 10 a.m. you can’t find a place to park at the beach—what a surprise! Today, it is still difficult to locate most public beach access points on Ponte Vedra Boulevard, although there are a few north of Corona Road that are marked. But most of them still remain shrouded by landscaping that effectively obscures access. Has anyone questioned why those points are still not more visible and available to the public several years after there was a hue and cry about the subject? The parking spaces in the Mickler parking lot do not begin to address the needs of St. Johns, Duval and Clay County residents—not to mention the out-of-state visitors—looking to enjoy the beach. And with the build out of Nocatee (which promotes the "Ponte Vedra Lifestyle" and access to the beach in its marketing campaign) the situation will become even more pronounced. A solution might be to charge people a nominal fee to park at the Ponte Vedra Beach elementary and middle schools parking lots that are empty all summer, and hire a shuttle service to ferry beachgoers to the access points the residents of Ponte Vedra Boulevard have disguised so agronomically. At the very least, a shuttle could run to Micker’s Landing. The fee could be applied to offset attendant costs of a shuttle. Jacksonville Beach has a shuttle; why not Ponte Vedra Beach? That might also help alleviate somewhat the practice of giving parking tickets to unsuspecting people forced to park their cars on the side of the road when the Mickler lot is overflowing. One final thought; why is it that the people who take their dogs to the beach are expected to pick up after them, but the people with horses who ride on the beach seemingly do not have to clean up the considerable messes left by the equines? Barry J. Palm Ponte Vedra Beach
LETTER: Beach access, parking issues must be resolved
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July 15th 2008 - 11:07AM