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WEST MAIN STREET PARKING OPPORTUNITIES AND ANALYSIS City of Charlottesville Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates Inc. | 12 Among commercial patrons, weekday evenings and weekend days and evenings were the most popular times to visit. The general populace tended to favor daytime hours during both the week and on weekends. Driving and parking is the most often cited mode for accessing the corridor (86% of commercial consumers and 72% of general respondents). This was followed by walking, bicycling and transit use (in order of frequency of use). Drivers did not indicate any strong preference for parking on street versus off street locations. Few currently do, and fewer yet wish to, park on nearby residential streets. Consumer perceptions of the corridor closely mirrored that of general respondents. Interestingly roughly comparable numbers of people (roughly one-third of respondents) feel it is easy to find parking near West Main Street as the number of people who have avoided West Main Street due to a perceived lack of parking. Two-thirds indicated that current parking time limits may be insufficient to do all they would like to do on the corridor. Less than a third of respondents think West Main Street is a nice walking street and fewer still are satisfied with the current parking situation on the corridor. Encouragingly, a significant majority of respondents are willing to walk up to a block from their parking space to their destination. While parking is currently free on the corridor, just under half the respondents (and a greater proportion of commercial consumers) indicated a willingness to pay $1 or more per hour to park on the corridor. Roughly a quarter were unwilling to pay any amount for parking, however of these, two-thirds did not come to the corridor primarily to shop or dine. Comments from respondents highlighted two consistent themes – parking IS important to the success of the corridor, but so too is the character of the corridor. Most comments expressed support to enhance the corridor to improve the retail environment and safety provided parking remained available and affordable. The full survey responses are included as Appendix B.