Downtown Officials Call for More Parking Now

By Jorge Casuso

We need more parking and we need it now.

That is the message the Bayside District Corp., which runs the city's downtown, plans to tell the Planning Commission at its meeting Wednesday night.

The urgent plea is the area merchants' reaction to a "Downtown Parking Management Study" by Kaku Associates that the commission is expected to discuss. The study, which was revised and updated after district board members questioned its findings and recommendations, analyzes existing and future parking demands around the bustling Third Street Promenade.

The updated report forecasts a parking shortage of as many as 2,400 spaces by 2004, compared to an initial projected shortfall of 700 spaces by 2010. It found that many downtown parking facilities currently exceed 85 percent capacity during at least some portion of a given week.

"We have an immediate problem that needs to be addressed," John Warfel, who chairs the district board's parking committee, told the board during a meeting on Friday.

The study found that during peak weekday hours - between 2 and 3 p.m. - 8,398 of the 10,996 parking spaces downtown, or 77 percent, are occupied. Of these, the study found that about 25 percent of the spaces are used by employees. During peak Saturday hours - between 9 and 10 p.m. - 6,990 spaces, or 74 percent, are occupied (there are 1,500 less spaces available to the public on Saturday nights).

The peak weekday numbers are higher in the six city-owned parking structures, where occupancy increased from 83 to 87 percent between September 1997 and September 1998. During the Saturday peak, occupancy rose from 85 to 87 percent at the six lots over the same period.

According to the city's staff report, "the survey results both validate many complaints people have made about parking shortages... and suggest that there are spaces currently available in the study area to meet the demonstrated needs."

But Bayside officials contend that the report does not reflect the urgent need for more parking downtown. They would like the city to explore rebuilding the existing structures - which are old and run down --to accommodate more cars.

"It would cost $5 million to replace each structure," said district board chair Herb Katz. "You could tear down one at a time add two levels of subterranean parking and go as high as you can."

Bob Gabriel, a civic leader who attended last week's Bayside District Board meeting, cautioned that more parking and development will only lure more cars to the already congested area.

"Building more parking will create more cars, which we can't even handle at this point," said Bob Gabriel. "Why do we think about more construction and development when the parking hasn't been taken care of?

"We've created a monster," Gabriel said. "All these things have accumulated, and we're sitting here trying to band aid it. I don't know the answer."

"The first hump we have to get over is does the city want more parking," Warfel said. "There's a whole group of people that thinks more parking means more cars, and they're absolutely right."

An analysis of the Parking Management Study conducted on behalf of the Bayside District Corp. found that the original study by Kaku Associates underestimated the amount of development forecast for the downtown area.

"The actual increase in retail development is four times greater than the forecast used by the Kaku Study"(which was based on figures from 1997 to 1998), according to the analysis.

The analysis found that approximately 105,000 square feet of development is being constructed per year versus the forecast 94,000 square feet.

"One solution is not to allow any more development," Warfel said. "It's something that may come out of the parking problem."

City staff made a series of recommendations that include increasing the rate the city charges for long-term monthly parking, using private parking at night and on weekends and implementing a system to let motorists know when a lot is full and direct them to lots with empty spaces. The recommendations also call for earmarking off-site parking for downtown employees.