parking meter – C-VILLE Weekly

Business owners worry as city proceeds with pilot parking meter program

While the city is moving ahead with plans to install more than 150 parking meters around the Downtown Mall, some local business owners are expressing their displeasure.

The city intends to contract with IPS Group, a major national parking meter vendor, to install meters for a six-month pilot program and expects to have the program up and running by September, city parking manager Rick Siebert says.

A petition from the Downtown Mall Alliance, which is against the parking meters, recently circulated, garnering about 325 signatures.

Cynthia Schroeder, executive director of the Downtown Mall Alliance and Spring Street owner, says it was easy to get people on board with the petition, but she was unable to speak on its behalf at a City Council meeting because of the lottery process for public comment.

“The people, they just don’t want it, and it’s coming anyway,” Schroeder says. “I would do more, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Since the city has finalized a contract with IPS and is working on the logistics of the pilot program, Schroeder says presenting her petition seems hopeless.

The initiative mainly targets areas directly adjacent to the Downtown Mall between Second and Sixth streets. Of the 157 on-street parking spots included in the program, 97 currently offer free two-hour parking during most times of the day, according to the city’s parking information website.

The metered spots will also have a two-hour parking limit, and will operate Monday through Saturday from 8am to 8pm with a rate of $2 per hour.

The metered parking would make it harder for people to work on the Downtown Mall, Schroeder says, and could also limit the time customers spend in her store for fear of being towed.

“The rotational parking is just not going to work,” Schroeder says. “I think that the metered parking is gonna be the demise of the mall.”

City Council voted 4–1 in favor of the parking meter six-month pilot program in April 2016.

Councilor Bob Fenwick, who called the measure “governance by resolution,” at that time, cast the only dissenting vote.

Siebert says four separate parking studies conducted by the city since 1986 have all recommended the management of on-street parking near the Downtown Mall.

“I recognize that people may have legitimate concerns,” Siebert says, “but we believe that this program will help the businesses and customers of the Downtown Mall, not hurt them.”

Meters gauged: Study agrees with one in 2008

Charlottesville is known for its fondness for studies, and a recent one on downtown parking concurs with a 2008 study that meters are a way to relieve a paucity of parking spaces. The question now is whether City Council will follow the recommendations that so far have cost taxpayers $98,500 for both studies, according to Chris Engle, director of economic development.

Charlottesville has not optimized the parking resources it has, which creates a “somewhat artificial sense of parking shortage,” says the Nelson/Nygaard study. “While some parking resources are oversubscribed, others demonstrate available capacity that could be better used.”

Downtown parking czar Mark Brown, who owns the Charlottesville Parking Center and who last year pushed paid street parking, isn’t surprised the study suggested adding meters. “It said exactly the same thing as the previous study in 2008,” he says.

What’s changed in the interim is that the Water Street Garage now has a waiting list for monthly parking, joining the Market Street Garage, which “has had a waiting list forever,” says Brown. Water Street has 900 spaces leased for monthly parkers, but there are never more than 600 parked there at one time, says Brown. “Where are they?” he asks. “They’re parked on the street and we have to hold a spot for them.”

To Brown, the lack of street parking is caused by downtown workers, many of whom grab the free two-hours parking meant for visitors, even if it means doing the two-hour shuffle.

Unless the city gets a grip on parking, says Brown, development will stall downtown. He’s tried to buy land for parking, but he says the owners want double or triple its value, claiming that it can be developed into offices, condominiums or hotels. “How are you going to develop with no parking?” he asks.

And while curbside parking is more valuable than off-street parking, the city’s pricing structure doesn’t reflect that, says the study. “[C]ompetition for curbside parking spaces is fierce in some locations even when off-street facilities in the immediate vicinity have a substantial unused supply,” says the study. “The city should restructure parking fees to better align parking price with parking demand and comparative value.”

The study also recommends creating a department of parking, discounting monthly garage parking rates for those who park on the top floors and putting smart meters at spaces most in demand.

Since parking meters were removed downtown in the ’70s, City Council has been reluctant to bring them back and did not heed the recommendation in 2008. At an October 1 City Council work session, “I saw a lot of nodding heads,” says Councilor Kristin Szakos. “I really think the time has come.”

City Councilor Bob Fenwick doesn’t agree. “The meters were taken off the streets long ago to encourage shopping downtown and it worked like a charm,” he says in an e-mail.

He’s also critical of the council’s tendency to pay for studies. “The staff is perfectly capable of reviewing the 2008 study (as are all the councilors and the city manager) and getting as much out of that as possible,” he says.

“I think the city in general does way too many studies,” says Brown. “If every time you do something you have to do a study, why do you have staff?”

But Szakos says the study “absolutely” was worth it because the earlier one was out of date. She also found some benefit from the perspective of those who did the study. “These are things cities across the country have dealt with,” she says. “There are best practices. There is a lot of science to it.”