2008 Parking Study Final Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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5 The Market Street garage offers both monthly and hourly parking. There is currently a waiting-list for monthly parking. Hourly parking is available at $2 per hour with a daily maximum of $16. Of the 500 spaces, 450 are public and the remaining 50 are private (leased to the City police). The Water Street garage also offers both monthly and hourly parking. Hourly parking costs $1.50 per hour with a daily maximum of $12. Of the 1,019 spaces, 843 are public and the remaining 176 are private (leased to specific businesses). CPC also operates the Water Street parking lot, which has some monthly parkers but is no longer accepting monthly parking applications. Hourly parking in this lot costs $2 per hour with a daily maximum of $16. The remaining public lots are operated by other companies. Private off-street parking: The 89 private lots, plus the small number of private spaces in the two large garages, have a total of about 2,900 spaces. On-street parking: The approximately 1,000 on-street spaces fall into a range of categories. About three-quarters of the on-street spaces are for general parking (that is, anyone can park there). This includes 470 spaces with unlimited time, 265 spaces with a maximum stay of two hours, and small numbers of one-hour, 30-minute and 15-minute spaces. All these spaces are free of charge. The time restrictions apply from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday. The remaining one-quarter of the on-street spaces are ‘specialist spaces’, designated for particular types of user: ADA priority spaces, government spaces, loading spaces, drop-off spaces, and spaces for residential permit-holders. 2.1.3 Location of Spaces Map 1 (see Appendix) shows all the parking spaces in the study area. Individual on-street spaces are color-coded according to their designation. Off-street public lots are shown in dark blue, and private lots in light blue. Map 2 (see Appendix) shows only the on-street general spaces, color-coded according to their time limit. In general, the periphery of downtown has unrestricted parking and the core area of downtown has two- hour parking. Particularly busy areas (such as City Hall or the Courthouse) have one-hour, 30-minute or 15-minute spaces. This pattern is typical of a downtown area, and remains broadly appropriate. Map 3 (see Appendix) shows the locations of the ADA, loading and drop-off spaces. These are spread across the downtown, with no particular pattern. 2.1.4 Parking Occupancy Table 2.2 shows the occupancy (that is, the proportion of spaces that were occupied) for each type of space throughout the day. The survey was undertaken on a cyclical basis, and the hours listed represent the start of each cycle. This means, for example, that the 8 AM column denotes occupancy when each space was counted some time between 8 AM and 9 AM. For general on-street parking, 85% is usually seen as the desirable maximum occupancy level. Above 85%, it becomes difficult for people to find a space near where they want to be. Too far below 85%, however, means that spaces are being wasted. For off-street parking, the desirable maximum is usually seen as 90% for visitors (including shoppers) and 95% for commuters. On typical weekdays during the business day, there is currently enough parking overall for everyone. At the busiest time of the survey, which was 2 PM, there were fewer than 3,800 vehicles in the 6,000 spaces (63% occupancy). The total off-street parking supply is sufficient in both the public and private categories (Figure 2.2 and Map 4). However, the on-street parking is under stress. The timed parking (two hours or less, intended for visitors such as shoppers) is at 88%-90% occupancy for much of the day (Figure 2.1). Within this category, the two-hour spaces exceed 85% occupancy for much of the day, and indeed reached 97% occupancy at 4 PM. These spaces are examined in more detail below.