Item A: Downtown Parking - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Attachment E Feedback from Downtown Business Owners. The Parking Services program has met with the downtown business community twice this year: (1) Parking Conversation with Downtown Business Owners October 15, 2008 ó Evite invitation to over 190 persons through Chamber of Commerce. ó DEI Guides distributed flyers to downtown businesses. ó 15 people were present at the downtown meeting ó 7 people emailed comments ó 5 people commented on the Evite website. ó The goal of the meeting was to listen to downtown businesses. Two questions were asked: (1) What do business owners think of our current downtown parking system? (2) How would you feel about eliminating downtown meters? The detailed feedback follows, but the high-level common themes we heard were: There’s a lack of information/understanding of the parking plan. We need more on street space in downtown. Free parking may create more employee abuse issues. Meters provide a perceived obstacle to coming downtown. Detail Feedback: Will try to attend. I think facts and figures could move the discussion ahead. How many downtown metered spaces are there? How many garage spaces? How much money do metered / garage spaces generate from downtown parking? What is this money used for? Also any changes should be accompanied by a public awareness campaign. I am all for elimination of the parking meters in the downtown area. I would still like to see a time limit of 2 to 4 hours. Insufficient affordable parking to support downtown business. The general consensus was that it would be acceptable if not more attractive to enhance downtown patronage and parking. However, there was a concern about how much revenue would be given up. It is assumed some continued monitoring of street parking would still occur. Without the meter revenue what would pay for the monitoring? Pulling the funding from other sources would not be deemed acceptable. Parking is the # 1 complaint we get here at our business. At least 2-3 times every day, we hear our customer’s frustration over the cost to park, and the lack of spaces available to park, in the downtown area. Given the current economic climate, you surely know that we don't want to give our customers ANY reason to avoid our downtown businesses. I'm glad to know that there is still time to send input regarding this topic. Please feel free to share our comments with anyone who's interested, and definitely cast our vote for "no paid parking in the downtown core"! Free parking on evenings and weekends would be great...too bad during the reconstruct of West Broadway that angle-in parking wasn't used to increase the number of available spaces downtown. Maybe something to consider for the future.