CHEYENNE, Wyo. — After heated discussions at two Committee of the Whole meetings and a prior council meeting, the city’s governing body has officially banned oversized vehicles.
The Cheyenne City Council passed an ordinance at its regular Monday night meeting to ban large vehicles such as RVs, campers and trailers from parking on public roadways. The decision has been hotly contested by members of the public in recent weeks at public meetings.
Councilmembers have been hard at work revising the regulations to reflect public feedback and criticism of the new rules’ impacts. At its Committee of the Whole meeting on Dec. 4, the governing body recommended a substitute of the ordinance to create a permitting system and add a three-month break during summertime. The governing body approved it Monday night.
The vehicle ban enforces the following:
- The ordinance defines an oversized vehicle as any vehicle or combination of vehicles that exceeds 25 feet in length, 8.5 feet in width or 9 feet in height.
- Oversized vehicles will be allowed to park on public streets five days before Memorial Day to five days after Labor Day.
- Any owner of an oversized vehicle can park the vehicle on a public street if they apply for and receive a parking permit. Cheyenne Police Chief Mark Francisco will be responsible for reviewing and accepting permit applications, which will allow a vehicle to remain parked for five days for the purposes of loading, unloading and cleaning for winter.
- Cheyenne police officers and the city’s compliance department will cite and fine any illegally parked oversized vehicles as traffic violations. If vehicles are fined and continue to be parked on public roadways, then the city will work its way up to towing it.
- The ordinance would take effect in September to allow time for public education.
- The ordinance exempts vehicles whose primary use is to accommodate disabled drivers or passengers.
Councilmembers made various amendments at Monday night’s meeting. Michelle Aldrich proposed an amendment to remove the three-month summer break and enact the ordinance earlier in the year. It lost on a 5–5 vote. Jeff White’s change to increase the maximum width size from 7 feet to 8.5 feet passed. Mark Rinne added a section barring any vehicle from parking on any part of the sidewalk or travel lane for longer than eight hours.
Michelle Aldrich and Richard Johnson each co-sponsored the regulations, as residents have continually told them over the years that oversized vehicles present a hazard to public safety.
All councilmembers except Bryan Cook and Pete Laybourn supported the ordinance.
Feedback on the ordinance
The ordinance has been the subject of scrutiny not only by residents, but also by several councilmembers. Residents have continually stated the ordinance is government overreach, adversely affects RV owners and businesses and doesn’t consider outside parking storage shortages nor the additional costs residents will incur. Some also say the city won’t be able to sufficiently enforce the rules or focus on better enforcing its current parking regulations.
On the flipside, others have said they’re surprised a similar ordinance isn’t already in place. Those who support the regulations say it’s essential to public safety and that residents have essentially been using city property as personal storage space. Supporters have also pointed out that the majority of other Wyoming cities enforce a ban on oversized vehicles.
Although most councilmembers voted in favor of the ban, several have disagreed on how the ordinance has been implemented. Some such as Pete Laybourn believe the break from Memorial Day to Labor Day defeats the purpose of regulations entirely; the rules, he said at Monday’s meeting, are rooted in promoting public safety. The summer months are the busiest of the year, so allowing residents to park on streets during that time undermines what the rules set out to achieve, according to the councilmember.
Aldrich, one of the co-sponsors, feels similarly to Laybourn. When she and Johnson originally drafted the ordinance, the three-month break was not included. She disagreed in including this compromise at the Dec. 4 Committee of the Whole meeting and again dissented on its inclusion Monday night.
A copy of the ordinance can be viewed below.
