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SPECIFIC CITY ACTIONS Unfunded City Action Rebrand the Downtown Parking System: A consistent brand or Estimate* image helps visitors find and remember downtown parking Rebranding $ 500,000 services. Portland’s SmartPark System and Vancouver, B.C.’s Easy Payments $ 100,000 Free Parking $ 200,000 EasyPark have had great success through brand identification. City parking lots and structures would be clearly visible to Total $ 800,000 motorists, as well as hours of operation, costs, and parking *General placeholders options. Currently, the City parking system is often confused with other private parking operators. The City of Eugene operates the majority of the parking structures in downtown Eugene. Improving wayfinding signs and using consistent signage at all City parking facilities would increase their accessibility and help promote the City’s parking services, which offer st business parking validation, 1 Hour Free parking, and evening and weekend free parking. (In downtown Portland, the launch of the SmartPark brand resulted in a revenue increase of 30%.) Specific action steps are to (1) create an easy to identify image for the City’s parking services, (2) market the parking program, which already includes 1st Hour Free and Free Saturdays/Sundays in garages, and parking validation by downtown businesses, and (3) create a clear and unified system to help downtown visitors find City garages (wayfinding), We have completed step one with the brand of “Epark – Its Easy, Economical, and Eugene.” The estimated cost for rebranding the parking system downtown is between $500,000 and $1 million, including garage signs, painting and garage appearance improvement, and street signs. Easy Payments: Many other municipal parking operations have experienced higher customer satisfaction and an increased use of parking when the payment transaction is as easy as possible. When credit card or pay by cell phone options are presented to customers, the payment transaction happens quickly and customers continue to their destination. Easy payment technologies increase the use of parking spaces and therefore increase revenue. The cities of Portland and Boulder have experienced an over 40% increase in on-street revenue after installing multi-space, credit card meters. These systems, however, do increase operating expenses, including maintenance, software licenses, merchant credit card fees, and cellular connections. The estimated cost for easy payment improvements is $75,000 to $200,000. st Free Parking: The City’s current 1 Hour Free Parking, Business Parking Validation, and free evenings and weekend parking are popular programs that are frequently used by the public. Additional ideas for downtown parking incentives are described below and are estimated to reduce parking revenue by $125,000 to $1 million. (In FY09, all downtown on-street meters generated $680,000.) ? First ticket is free! – Give a warning parking ticket for the first parking violation. Subsequent tickets, within the next six months, would include fines that increased with each ticket. The City of Fort Collins, Colorado calls the first ticket an “Oopps” ticket. The system resets itself if the vehicle is parking ticket free for six-months. The impact of this policy change is a citation revenue loss of $125,000. ? Sprinkle “Customer 10 Minute Parking” around downtown – This option would add 10 minute customer parking spaces around downtown to support businesses’ need for parking space turnover. Enforcement of 10 minute parking zones would be challenging. ? Free downtown parking during holidays or targeted dates – In partnership with downtown businesses, create guidelines and a marketing plan for free parking during the