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WEST MAIN STREET PARKING OPPORTUNITIES AND ANALYSIS City of Charlottesville Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates Inc. | 18 PARKING UTILIZATION PATTERNS To determine availability of parking in the West Main Street study area, parking utilization counts were conducted in September 2014. On a midweek day (Wednesday) and Sunday, all parked cars within the study area were counted every two hours between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. On Friday and Saturday, all parked cars in the study area were counted every two hours between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. In order to eliminate the perception that parking is not available, it is ideal to have at least one empty space per block face in a commercial district, ensuring easy customer access to businesses. This typically equates to about 1 out of 8 on-street spaces free, or a target of 15-percent vacant spaces per block face. Similarly, a goal of at least 10- percent vacancy in off-street lots is optimal. If any facility has less availability, it is effectively at its functional capacity. Utilization patterns include all inventoried spaces – both restricted- use and publicly available spaces. The utilization pattern analysis for West Main Street indicates that, for the majority of the time the study area has more than adequate parking supply to satisfy its demand, most notably in off-street private and reserved/permit only lots during non-business hours. Public on-street parking in the study area is generally well utilized, but not yet overcapacity. The lowest demand was observed during the morning midweek periods (9 and 11 a.m.), with utilization rates hovering betwee n 25 and 70%. Utilization rates for midday periods (1 and 3 p.m.) is more robust, generally clustering around 75%. On-street parking utilization predictably approaches capacity on Friday and Saturday nights (7 p.m.), when demand peaks at 86% and 90%, respectively. Figure 5 West Main Street On-Street Parking Utilization Rates Day Period Total Cars Utilization Rate Wednesday (9/17) 9 a.m. 27 39% 11 a.m. --* --* 1 p.m. 42 60% 3 p.m. 31 44% 5 p.m. --* --* Friday (9/19) 9 a.m. 32 46% 11 a.m. 47 67% 1 p.m. 57 81% 3 p.m. 58 83% 5 p.m. 60 86% 7 p.m. 60 86% Saturday (9/20) 9 a.m. 36 51% 11 a.m. 58 83% 1 p.m. 55 79% 3 p.m. 43 61% 5 p.m. 54 77% 7 p.m. 63 90% Sunday (9/21) 9 a.m. 14 20% 11 a.m. 53 76% 1 p.m. N/A** 3 p.m. 5 p.m. Sunday (10/26) 9 a.m. 30 43% 11 a.m. 74 106% 1 p.m. 53 76% 3 p.m. 44 63% 5 p.m. 56 80% *Insufficient data; **On-street parking prohibited due to Midtown Street Fair