During the week, more than half of the parking spaces are occupied by student gendarmes. Residents, clinic patients, and hospital patients share the remaining spaces.
Finding a parking spot on Avenue des Etats-Unis is a real obstacle course. Residents, patients, healthcare workers: everyone fights for a spot on this constantly crowded artery, crushed between three major institutions – the hospital center, the Chaumont-Le-Bois medical-surgical center, and the gendarmerie school. And this is true regardless of the time of day. On weekends, the contrast is striking. The avenue empties out, almost deserted. Why such a difference?
A neighborhood resident explains: “More than half of the spaces are occupied by student gendarmes. Their vehicles stay parked all week, almost in the same spot. On Friday afternoon, they return to their families and finally free up space. By Sunday evening, Avenue des Etats-Unis and Avenue du 109th Infantry Regiment fill up again.”
During the week, residents, clinic patients, and hospital patients share the few remaining spaces. A resident admits that he has had to, on several occasions, resort to parking near the French Blood Agency facility for lack of options.
Frustration shared by all residents of Avenue des Etats-Unis
However, during the work on Avenue du 109th Infantry Regiment, the city had reserved spaces at the Voltaire parking lot for student gendarmes. This arrangement is still in place. According to some users of the parking lot, the spaces are not or hardly being used. Aware of this issue, the local government will soon meet with a representative from the Gendarmerie School.
The lack of parking spaces is not only due to the number of vehicles: some drivers, intentionally or not, park “crab-like,” encroaching on others’ space and blocking the neighboring spot. Frustration shared by all residents, but something that no one can do much about.
Corentin Gouriou
c.gouriou@jhm.fr
Hospital visitor parking displaced
Parking issues in the hospital area are far from resolved. As of today, the visitor parking lot at the Chaumont hospital has been permanently displaced. It has moved from Avenue Jeanne-d’Arc to 35 Avenue des Etats-Unis, on the site of the French Blood Agency. Officially reserved for visitors, this new parking lot is already saturated during the week. So how will it absorb an additional influx of vehicles? In reality, occasional users will often have no choice but to look for a spot along the two avenues, already crowded thoroughfares. Additional pressure on an area that really did not need it.
