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GREENSBORO — Tired of snaking your way around those big delivery trucks parked in the middle of South Elm Street during morning rush hour? Help is on the way.

In the next two months, the City Council will get a list of recommendations for easing the parking woes that now plague downtown, such as cracking down on drivers with unpaid parking tickets and limiting loading-zone parking to trucks making commercial deliveries.

A subcommittee of city officials and merchants has been studying possible solutions since spring. The group plans to discuss its recommendations Tuesday with the full Downtown Development Advisory Committee. Then, any proposals go before the council for a vote.

Among the suggestions for dealing with trucks:

* Allow only commercially licensed vehicles to use loading zones;

* Eliminate unneeded loading zones, expand those that are needed to at least 60 feet and install additional zones.

* Convert the unneeded loading zones into parking spots.

The changes aren't without tradeoffs for motorists. Merchants wondered last week whether the city, by adopting the subcommittee's loading-zone recommendations, would swap one problem for another.

Expanding loading zones takes away on-street parking in some parts of downtown.

And by limiting parking in loading zones to commercial vehicles, drivers would lose some of the convenience of driving downtown for a quick errand.

The current ordinance, passed in 1998 before downtown's commercial revival, allows a driver to park in a loading zone for 30 minutes.

"We already get so many customers complaining about parking availability when they come to eat," said Lee Morphis, owner of Fincastle's restaurant on South Elm Street. "It would be nice if the street was just a little bit wider."

The parking committee plans to get feedback from downtown merchants and the public before it puts forth its proposal to the council. Any changes to parking ordinances rest with the council.

Other suggestions to be discussed at Tuesday's meeting are a valet parking ordinance and the use of taxi stands.

"We're looking for a balance," said Adam Fischer, engineering manager for the city's transportation department and a member of the parking subcommittee. "We don't want to do anything to harm the progress made downtown."

Rapid growth downtown in recent years has multiplied the number of food and beer deliveries to the restaurants, bars and nightclubs that have sprung up since the council allowed cars to park in loading zones.

Although the city has also built parking garages for visitors to use, many motorists favor the on-street parking, which puts them closer to their destinations.

"Maybe you can lower the rates in the parking decks and encourage people to park there," said John Callicutt, president of Walton Investigations, which has an office on South Elm Street. "This time of year I'd rather park in the parking decks anyway because your car doesn't get so hot."

The issue of commercial trucks blocking traffic surfaced at Monday night's City Council meeting when Mayor Keith Holliday and Councilman Tom Phillips mentioned complaints made to them about police ticketing truck drivers as they unloaded their goods.

Police Capt. George Holder later confirmed that officers have, in fact, made a renewed effort to ticket trucks. Holder said most of the tickets were written warnings; only if a truck blocked a whole direction of traffic would law enforcement issue a fine.

"Our fear is that one of the old buildings would go up like a matchstick with lots of patrons," Holder said of the congestion downtown. "We won't be able to get to it."

Contact Eric J.S. Townsend at 373-7008 or etownsend@news-record.com