A.
History. The streets of West Chester were, for the most part, not built with the intention of allowing parking along the sides. Most streets were built before the advent of motor vehicles, a day when most people either walked or moved about by horse or horse and buggy. Needless to say, those horses and buggies were not stored on the street for long periods of time. As a courtesy, with the growth of the automobile, municipalities have allowed parking on streets. At all times, however, regulation of that parking has remained within the powers of those municipalities. The right of such regulation has never been successfully challenged. As the years passed, the necessity for the automobile grew. In the years since the Korean War, the auto has been looked upon as one item that each family had to own; in the last decade, many families have operated more than one vehicle. Congestion on the streets and growing inconvenience to residents, as well as the impedance of normal and necessary traffic flow, has been the inevitable consequence of the Borough's normal urban development. In West Chester, this condition has been heightened by the growth of West Chester University and the related growth of rooming and apartment houses near the University, without the development of off-street parking, and by the growth of county government and related professional offices without provision for the necessary parking by the great number of cars brought in by this growth. The situation has reached the point where Borough residents are unable, in many parts of town, to find parking near their homes. Most of these people do not have garages and lack enough yardage to construct parking. This most seriously affects our senior citizens, who are unable to shop or carry on other routine business for fear of losing parking that they do have, or of not finding parking upon their return. Another point of increasing significance is the effect on the environment of heavy vehicular traffic. The noise, dirt, litter and pollution created by the thousands of cars that visit the Borough is unhealthy to the Borough and its residents, both aesthetically and physically.
B.
Legislative intent. This chapter is designed to increase the quality of life in the Borough's older, more crowded sections of town; to preserve the safety of children and other pedestrians; to promote traffic safety and the peace, good order, comfort, convenience and welfare of the inhabitants of the Borough; to encourage commuters to carpool or use mass transit; and to encourage those agencies and establishments contributing to increased traffic to help promote additional parking facilities.