TITLE: Title
Update on Parking Study 2020
PURPOSE: The purpose of this item is to update the Council on the status of the Parking Study 2020 and check-in on next steps for moving forward.
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DEPARTMENT: Economic Development
CONTACT INFORMATION: Annette Stone, AICP Economic Development Director (919) 918-7319 astone@townofcarrboro.org
INFORMATION: On June 11, 2019, Town Council directed staff to undertake a parking study that would examine a paid for parking system for the Downtown. The motion stated “Staff is directed to look into (with help of a consultant or by themselves) the designing of a paid-for parking program and how to time limit enforce parking in the downtown, including options for the private lot owners to participate in the program and the enforcement. Scenarios will include a deck and without a deck. Staff, and/or the consultant, will also provide assessments on how to pay for these projects.”
Through an RFP process, the Town hired Walker Parking Consultants to conduct a study. Their scope of work includes the following task 1) kick-off meeting with staff, 2) stakeholder engagement, 3) data review and analysis, 4) enforcement operations and maintenance, 5) parking technology, payment systems and scalability, 6) capital costs and revenue, and 7) analysis of equity impacts, the full proposal is attached as Attachment 1.
An important piece of this report was to update the parking counts from the 2017 parking study. Town staff has been working with the CBA to identify an agreeable timeframe to do counts that fairly represent typical usage of town parking supply. The counts have now been scheduled for Thursday March 26th and Saturday March 28th.
At the time this study was commissioned, staff was directed to consider a possible revenue stream to pay for a “free-standing” parking structure independent of the 203 project. Since the town is now taking the approach of maximizing existing surface lot capacity and collaborating with owners of private lots to manage public parking in the downtown, staff wanted to check-in with council as to the scope of this study to see if and where it may need to be modified.
For the FY20-21 budget, staff has established a “parking fund.” The revenue source for now will be the general fund, however, isolating and tracking cost for maintaining public parking will be critical data in developing any pay-for-parking system in the future. With that understanding and with the current path for providing public parking in anticipation of the 203 Project, council may want to consider modifying the scope of work for the 2020 parking study.
Staff recommends that we redirect the consultant to focus on technologies to help manage the parking supply as we continue to enter into leases with private lot owners. Also, the enforcement component will be critical in managing supply, therefore, we would ask the consultant to focus on technologies that would help to direct users to open lots, provide a tracking mechanism for enforcement, and possibly serve as a pay-for-parking system in the future. Capital cost and possible revenues would be more closely examined at a later time, when we have been tracked the cost of providing public parking for at least one full year or more.
FISCAL & STAFF IMPACT: $50,000 for the study has already been allocated and a contract awarded to Walker Parking Consultants.
RECOMMENDATION:r Staff recommends the Council discuss the item and consider directing staff to work with the consultant to modify the scope of work to better align with the current plan for parking management in the downtown.