In many instances, I’ve been impressed with some of the parking-related adjustments that have come out of City Hall lately.
The scooter & motorcycle parking initiative that was rolled out last year was done in a swift and effective manner to provide not only additional parking revenue for the city, but also to provide a progressive service to two-wheeler riders that has actually gotten a bit of national attention.
The city has also been testing a variety of new “smart” meters that accept credit cards, are solar powered, and have wi-fi functionality. Nice.
And just two months ago, there was an announcement that the city would be lifting rush hour parking restrictions in very specific key areas throughout Downtown to allow parking to remain in front of businesses where parking can be very difficult to find. Again, a win for both parking revenue, as well as both businesses and customers.
But today I’m disappointed. Several folks at City Hall have decided that without any public input there will be a 50% rate hike to all parking meters across the board throughout the city, which includes the Downtown, German Village, and Short North areas. Of the $4.6 million in revenue this is expected to raise, $1.4 million of it will be going towards bonds to fund the development of the new Convention Center Hotel scheduled to open in 2012.
Additionally, some areas (mainly the Short North) will have meter enforcement times expanded from 6pm to 9pm, and additional 1,800 meters are to be added to the current 4,200 throughout the city. I would have to imagine that these new meters may wind up in new areas on the near east and near west sides as well as new areas around the Ohio State University and perhaps even up into Clintonville.
Don’t get me wrong… I think that meter rates in certain areas could stand to be slightly higher, and enforcement hours in certain spots are due for an update. The urban landscape has changed quite a bit in the past 10 years, and parking (like everything) should evolve to fit the needs of the public. Enforcing meter parking near open businesses means that parking spots are regularly being turned over, making it easier for new customers to park close to their destinations.
The two biggest things that concern me is the fact that this plan was put together behind closed doors without any form of public input, and that the changes being made are wide and sweeping rather than being done with precision and care. Different streets have different needs. Park Street next to the North Market is a completely different animal than Town Street near the Topiary Park. Why should they be looked at through the same lens?
I think it’s also a bit concerning about how some of this information is being pushed out to the public. I’ve heard several city officials state that current meter rates have been untouched in over 10 years, which is not at all true. Perhaps they see a difference between “raising the rates” and “lowering the time given per quarter” but to anyone else, it’s the same thing.
We’re also being promised the rollout of the aforementioned “smart” meter heads throughout the city, which I do think would be a great technological upgrade. Of course, this is all being promised as something that will happen down the road, and is taking a back seat to the $1.4 Million allocated to bonds to pay for the new Convention Center Hotel. I think the new hotel is a great development, but this funding scenario is a bit ridiculous. This new hotel is going to benefit the entire Central Ohio region, and yet only people who rely on parking Downtown are being forced to chip in to pay for it.
The redevelopment of Downtown as a whole has seen a lot of progress over the past 10 years, much of which is due to city policies that make living, working, and hanging out Downtown a more attractive option than it was before. I’m afraid that increasing the inconvenience by such a drastic amount is going to have an overall negative impact on the area. Instead of heading to the Short North to shop, people are going to go to Easton where parking is free. Instead of going Downtown to dine, people are going to go to Polaris where parking is free. Instead of opening a new business Downtown, entrepreneurs are going to establish themselves in pretty much any other part of the city where their customers and clients can park for free.
Personally, this isn’t going to stop me from going Downtown, and I really do hope that it won’t stop too many others. I’ve always said that both driving and parking will need to become more inconvenient throughout Central Ohio before mass transit development becomes an attractive option for the general public. I just think that it’s a bit ridiculous to force that inconvenience upon the one area in town that needs it the least while the rest of the city remains unchanged and unchallenged. As someone who rarely deals with cash and pocket change anymore, I probably won’t be able to park at meters except on very rare occasions. If we were getting the credit-card accepting meters up front this would not be an issue. Instead, I’ll be giving more of my transit budget to COTA, as I can ride the bus easily without fishing for silver change from the couch cushions before leaving the house. If any good is going to come from this, I imagine it will be in the form of increased bus ridership and bike ridership.
Again… very disappointed in all of this.
I think you hit the nail right on the head here, Walker.
We live in a city where people will drive an extra five minutes to follow that one person walking out of the big-box store and see where they parked, just to get a spot within crawling distance of the store and not have to park where they might actually have to walk for a minute.
Lack of parking has been stated as a reason to not go downtown in the past, despite the preponderance of surface parking. For some reason, if you’re not able to park directly in front of your destination in Columbus, there’s “no parking” - despite the empty garages, metered parking spaces and such throughout downtown after 6:00.
I’m a firm believer that there should be NO free parking in Franklin County (so that we include all the suburbs, which frequently undermine the urbanist efforts of MORPC, Columbus City government, etc.). If you force everyone to work on a level playing field, then you’ll see downtown have the same advantages as places like Easton and Polaris, and we can really start to improve our city’s layout and makeup.
And who knows? Columbus might not be the 5th-fattest city in the country if people were forced to actually walk places! What a concept.
I’m hoping the small businesses survive. When it costs a half roll of quarters for an afternoon shopping trip or lunch, I can’t blame potential patrons for moving on. Especially when so many of those meters they are feeding are broken. We need the smart meters before they raise rates.
I completely agree with Liz. We need the smart meters first. I would have absolutely no problem paying more if I could do it with my debit card. For me, the inconvenience with downtown parking has nothing to do with paying to park and everything to do with needing change to do it.
I feel the same about COTA. I simply do not understand why I cannot purchase a COTA debit card that I could load some money on and grab a bus whenever I need to. As it is now, I never use COTA because, unless I buy an annual pass, I need to have exact change on me.
Great post though, Walker. I didn’t know about the new 9PM meter times, just the fee increases.
Mike, I agree that a rechargeable COTA pass would be pretty awesome, and it’s something I’ve heard that they’ve contemplated. The current pass system though allows for monthly passes ($45, which is probably going up to $55 soon) and not annual passes. It’s good for unlimited ridership and runs from the start to end of the month. It’s what Anne & I use (we share one car in our household and share one bus pass) and it works out great.
I agree with most of this. Two things I have seen recently however were one, the removal of the new meters from Gay St., where we were really getting used to them and two, an unasked for reduction in speed limits around Hilliard. These I believe are in Hilliard City Limits so that may be the issue with the speed but we locals that use the roads were not, I believe asked about the downgrade in limits. Interestingly the same road is 55 MPH when you hit the border between Columbus and Hilliard on Alton/Darby Road.
A few other odd traffic notes related to the above. The speed limit was also quietly reduced from 45 to 35 on Scioto/Darby road recently with out word or warning that I am aware of. Just driving home one day and the Alton/Darby limit was 10 MPH lower and then recently the other main road I use out here, Scioto/Darby lost 10 MPH. Only reason I can think of is half the folks out here were totally inconsiderate of the fact that yes, some of us like to drive the limit and those of you doing 10 or 15 under might want to take a slower road home so we can get where we are going. Apparently they got a break and the rest of us are paying for that one.
Something you should tackle in the future - roundabouts. These eye sores and bits of driver confusion are at an epidemic stage out here. Dublin and Hilliard are particularly goo-goo eyed over them. I say, would you want your grandmother trying to figure one out? that alone should send a shiver through people that actually care about drivers. If they are for beauty sake alone, the 37 signs showing how to use them are killing that, plus, how much does it cost to put these menaces up compared to a 4-way stop with it’s neat open spaces, wide panoramic view of the intersections and easy to understand 4 signs.
Oh well. Just wish they would ask us about this stuff instead of spending my money like that.
Sean
Yeah, this is just bad. I still can’t get over how much traffic there was in downtown Lowell, MA (pop. 100,000) *after* rush hour. It was only .25 cents every 15 min., so a dollar an hour and guess what? *No parking meters*. Instead, there is a pole with two numbers for the two numbered spots, the one in front and behind. So if you’re parked at 150 you just go to the machine, type in your parking spot number and pay with cash or *credit/debit card*. A cities that are much, much smaller than ours have downtowns that blow ours out of the water, and it’s just because of simple, but important issues like this one. I saw a Barnes & Noble bookstore in their downtown, where’s our downtown bookstore? I also saw a packed cafe around 7PM, but we can’t support a downtown cafe after five in a city of 750,000.
Now would be a good time to remind people that they have parking meter cards and the city should have them available at numerous locations Downtown. Not as good as not hiking up the meter costs, but still.
Even as someone who rides their bike everywhere and enjoys it, this is obviously not going to help attract more visitors Downtown. Not only that, but I see nothing guaranteeing that the meter money is going to be re-invested into their respective streets. If that were the case, I could see more support for it and it might be enough to encourage visitors to keep spending their money there by seeing firsthand that their money is being used for improvements on that street. Especially if that fact were publicized.
Nothing is being done to dis-incentivize visitors to sprawling areas of the city and I still stand by this being an anti-urban, pro-sprawl move by the city. I don’t see any tolls being set up on 161 or Polaris Pkwy to make visitors pay for using their cars. In fact, the city is spending millions to add more lanes to strip-mall lined rods like Rome-Hilliard all while forcing higher parking rates on the urban core and choosing not to spend any money on two-waying more streets like Main St Downtown. Of course, if they did that, then Main would likely have seen similar results like Gay St with more businesses that would have attracted more people which means more people paying to use those meters. Instead, businesses have folded and there aren’t many reasons to park there, but hey at least it’s a great feeder street that doesn’t produce any noticeable parking meter revenue.
Oh well, there’s always time to berate our city officials for how stupid this and offer better solutions and if enough people do, it’ll be hard for them to ignore.