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<br /> vi <br />A concerted effort to provide a ‘best in class’ transit service within the Charlottesville Urban Area could, <br />ambitiously, double the number of transit riders to downtown. This would liberate around 300 <br />downtown spaces – enough to absorb a few years of growth or the closure of a significant parking lot, <br />but not enough to change the dominance of car travel. <br />Parking supply and pricing have an important relationship with transit ridership. The more scarce and <br />more expensive downtown parking is, the more people will ride transit. As with any city, this produces <br />a dilemma for Charlottesville. If Charlottesville wishes to use transit to reduce downtown parking <br />demand, it needs to be part of wider package of measures including: <br />· Using the supply and price of commuter parking to regulate demand. <br />· Providing good-quality, attractive alternative modes of travel, so that people can and will <br />respond to the price signals. No one alternative mode will be suitable for everybody, so a <br />balanced system of alternatives is needed. <br />· Continuing to develop TDM programs to support people who use the alternatives. The use of <br />in-lieu fees would be an important step in this process. <br />The streetcar project, as currently envisioned, would provide a net increase of around 30 on-street <br />parking spaces on Water Street, by reconfiguring the road layout with new spaces on the south side. Its <br />other impacts on the downtown parking supply would be negligible. This parking study is likely to have <br />no impact on the downtown wayfinding effort.