Friday, March 29, 2024

Paid Parking coming soon

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From its earliest days parking has been a problem for the tiny Bavarian Village. It is rumored that Ted Price, one of the original visionaries for making the town a tourist destination, saw parking as a potential problem. Whether his concerns reflected the actual parking availability at the time, or his enthusiasm for the ultimate success of his dream will remain unknown. What is clear from the traffic problems over the last few years is much of our congestion is fueled by tourists on the hunt for a place to park.

The issue has been under study for a number of years. Consultants have been brought in and committees have argued long and hard about how to solve the problem.

City Council members argued over upcoming changes to parking regulations at the April 27 meeting. The changes are significant and much has already been done. An ugly old unused fruit warehouse has been removed and turned into a parking lot. The city acquired the old Department of Transportation lot on the West end of town and a new park and ride lot has been added behind the Safeway store. LINK transit promises to run shuttles from that lot to the west end on a regular schedule, but it’s not enough.

The newest effort is to get the “Right Parker in the Right Place.” What that means is getting employees to park somewhere besides in front of their business and encourage tourists to not park in the same spot all day.

In order to accomplish that the city has moved to a paid parking strategy. You may have noticed parking meters have been installed downtown. These are not your ordinary meters either. These are exceptionally smart meters. They can monitor when someone pulls in and when they leave. When you leave, any money remaining on your meter is automatically zeroed out – no sense driving around to find a meter with time left on it - they won’t exist. When you pull into an empty space you will have 15 minutes grace to feed the meter before parking enforcement is dispatched to issue you a ticket. That’s right, sensors in the ground know when you pull in and pull out and notify parking enforcement automatically.

Pricing will vary based on demand. It is all controlled electronically from the “parking control center.” This generated a significant debate at the April 27 City Council session. The rate policy consists of recognizing 5 different parking demands and setting pricing based on those demands. Those demand periods are: Festival - $3.50 per hour, Busy - $3.00 per hour, Active - $2.50 per hour, Calm - $2.00 per hour and Quiet - $1.00 per hour. All meters would be set to a maximum of 3 hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. except for the two busiest demand periods of Festival and Busy when hours would be 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Parking lots follow the same demand structure except there is an “all day option.” Festival parking is $3 per hour or $30 per day. Busy time is $2 per hour or $20 per day. Active is $1.50 per hour or $15 per day and Calm days are $1 per hour or $10 per day. There is a $5 discount for early birds to the all day permit. Quite times are free at all lots.

Employees would have a number of options for parking. They could buy a monthly permit for a reserved parking spot in P2-Blewitt for $139 per month, $149 per month in P7- Freund, $40 per month in P6 – Glacier or they can park for free in Glacier without a permit on a space available basis.

Councilman Reister expressed concern about the impact of $149 per month to employees. He thought it was too high. City Administrator Ana Cortez responded that yes, it is high but when the staff analyzed the cost they determined the individual spaces had a value of $800 so the city is heavily subsidizing that value at $149 per month. Cortez also commented that a number of businesses have indicated they plan to pay for parking permits for their employees.

When queried about the $800 per month by Reister, Cortez responded that they examined the revenue the city received per spot in each of the lots prior to Covid.  The strategy was to allow permit parking only in the lots that had the highest return to the city.

Reister said he has talked to a number of business people downtown who can’t find employees who want to work. This is going to make it even more difficult. Mayor Florea said he would agree with Councilman Reister if the city wasn’t giving employees the option for free spots and the city was giving them the option for a lot of free spots.

Council woman Anne Hessburg weighed in on the fact that the parking committee has been working on this for over a year. They believe they have provided a lot of options for employees. There are 250 free spots available around the city and Councilwoman Bretz has been working with LINK transit to make sure the shuttle times provide timely service to downtown. Hessburg added, “the city isn’t in the business of providing parking for businesses.”

Reister asked how visitors would know what’s available and the cost. Cortez said they plan on being a smart city with the information being available through an ap on your smart phone, but they are also talking to some sign companies about electronic signage that is changeable so people don’t have to drive around searching for a parking spot.

Someone violating the parking policy would be issued a ticket for $49. If they pay within 2 days they can reduce the penalty to $39. If not paid in 15 days, a late fee of $25 is assessed. Another $25 late fee is added if not paid within 47 days. After 77 days a 30% collection fee is assessed and the account goes to collection for a total of $128.70.

There was a discussion about assessing a fee to residents for setting up a residential parking zone. Council was generally opposed to charging residents a fee for setting up a permit parking system in their residential zone. Several Council members expressed concern that residents should not have to pay to fix a problem they did not create.

No decision was made at the April 27 council meeting regarding the fees.

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