City Council Joint Work Session

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10.

Meeting Date:	04/17/2017
From:	Karl Eberhard, Comm Design & Redevelopment Mgr
Department:	Economic Vitality
Co-Submitter:

Information

TITLE:

Comprehensive Parking Management Update.

DESIRED OUTCOME:

Hear presentation.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

This presentation includes a high level overview of the problem(s) being addressed by the plan; the plan development process used to date; basic "nuts and bolts" of the parking system; and current events including an overview of the extensive public outreach and the implementation timeline.

INFORMATION:

Currently, Flagstaff has limited amounts of public parking, limited management of the spaces we do have, and limited enforcement of the spaces that are regulated.

The impacts of these circumstances manifested first in North Downtown some time before 1980 with customers not being able to find convenient parking. As North Downtown was revitalized in the early 1990’s, spill-over of Downtown parkers into the North End neighborhood began to surface as an issue. Most recently, spill-over parking in the Southside has not only made it hard for residents to find spaces, but parking habits have been chaotic – with parkers parking on private property and other undesirable behaviors like blocking driveways, fire hydrants, and streets. This issue now extends northward consuming the Phoenix Avenue parking lot, the City Hall parking lots, and neighborhoods north of the tracks and west of Milton Road.

To address the issues of Downtown parking, and to a lesser extent Southside parking, five parking studies have been commissioned since 1980 and the conclusions have universally been that we need more parking and that the parking we do have needs to be managed. Creating more parking, either by buying or building, is simple enough, though expensive, and in the course of several attempts to address this, the community has been unable to arrive at an agreeable answer as to who pays for it. On tackling the issue of management of the limited parking we do have, it becomes clear that the issues and solutions are not only interconnected, but individual neighborhood issues are likely, if not certainly, exacerbated by management of parking in an adjacent district or neighborhood.

Because of these studies, since 2008 the parking issues have been well understood and agreed upon. And, the community has been able to agree that the solution needed to be a comprehensive one with accord between, and buy-in from, all of the stakeholders. Thus, the current Comprehensive Parking Management Plan is a holistic solution to the known and anticipated parking problems that has support from eleven identified stakeholder groups including the City, the County, Northern Arizona University, and all of the surrounding neighborhoods. To be clear, while there may still be individuals that have concerns, the plan has been designed as an eleven-way compromise – fairly balancing competing goals and needs, resources, and impacts.

Comprehensive Parking Management is fully documented by the Comprehensive Parking Management Plan and the Administrative Guidelines – both can be accessed via the “Learn More” button at www.Facebook.com/ParkFlag. “ParkFlag” is simply a convenient moniker, the branding, for the comprehensive parking management program in Flagstaff. The following is a brief overview of the parking system that is currently being implemented.

The cornerstone of the plan recognizes that parking is not free and uses the concept of “pay-to-park” to provide a revenue source for the acquisition of additional parking (long-term solution), but also to change parking behaviors – to manage our currently limited parking supply (short-term solution). The management of parking is accomplished by several programs, the most notable being Pay-to-park, Employee Permit Parking, Resident Permit Parking, Enforcement, and Demand Reduction.

For the most convenient parking spaces in north and south downtown (streets and public parking lots), over one-hundred parking kiosks (multi-space parking meters) are being installed. Users can also purchase parking rights via a mobile app that will text or email parkers when more time needs to be purchased. The current two-hour limitation will be removed, allowing the cost of parking to cause judicious use of these convenient parking spaces. It is anticipated that this parking management strategy will cause there to be more spaces for customers. The estimated revenue of $1M per year, will subsidize the remainder of the parking program and provide the funding for buying or building additional parking in the future.

The inevitable result will be that some employees and business owners will generally choose not to park in pay-to-park spaces. So, the plan creates places where employees are allowed to park, located on the fringes of the convenient customer parking but short of the neighborhoods. It is important to note that: (1) there will still be a shortage of parking spaces, (2) there will not be enough parking for all employees, and (3) employee parking in the neighborhoods will continue. The final plan includes more than three hundred “new” employee parking spaces, notably more than the originally anticipated one-hundred spaces, and arrangements are still being made to acquire yet more spaces. The management of the City and possibly County facilities by ParkFlag makes even more parking spaces available to employees (and the public) after normal business hours.

To manage the existing Southside spill-over parking and the expected spill-over into neighborhoods surrounding the pay-to-park areas, a resident permit parking program is introduced. Recognizing that on-street parking is a public resource, and necessary for the overall parking system, this program allows for the reservation of one-half of the available parking spaces for property owners. For fairness and for administrative purposes, these permits will be issued at one per water meter, regardless of whether or not the property is a “residential” use, and regardless of the number of units, number of tenants, and so forth. Notably, the property owners must get together and by petition ask for the installation of these parking restrictions.

The least desirable option for ParkFlag is parking enforcement. It is hoped that the comprehensive design of our parking, and options offered, will be enough to cause folks to park where desired. However, it is necessary to backup such hope with stepped up enforcement activities, not only due to the expanded service area, but also to increase the level of service to an effective level. The plan contemplates an ideal of one enforcement staff for every three hundred managed parking spaces and establishes efficiencies in data management and communication that would have enforcement staff on the street for more hours per day. In this light, and in the interest of customer service, the first “ticket” in any one year will actually be a warning.

ParkFlag will immediately invest in ecoPasses that allow small business employees to receive this free bus pass in lieu of their parking permit. ParkFlag is committed to building bicycle parking facilities as they build parking. And, one park-n-ride is under consideration presently and ParkFlag and NAIPTA continue discussions of additional park-n-ride opportunities. These and other parking demand reduction strategies are incorporated into the plan now and as items of further development as ParkFlag moves forward.

Finally, it is constructive to understand the Comprehensive Parking Management Program Special Revenue Fund. In January / February of 2016, when the City Council adopted the first set of changes to Title 9, a special revenue fund was created for ParkFlag establishing it as an enterprise fund. This means that the revenues and expenses for parking are a closed system with the monies reserved for parking related expenses. Seemingly contrary to this, but not so, there is a repayment of the start-up funds over the first few years of operations. In addition, the ordinance specifies that at least twenty percent of the gross receipts is further restricted for use in buying or building additional parking supply.

As we move forward, the same extensive outreach program is being deployed. This has included print articles and advertising, radio and television interviews and stories, social media, group presentations, and one-on-one discussions with businesses, property owners, and employees. In about two months, the Flagstaff Downtown Business Alliance will begin providing professional marketing services to boost the reach of the outreach campaign.

Currently, there are four critical path areas of work. The kiosk foundations and sign posts are installed and are now awaiting a "switch out" process that will occur in mid-July. The back-of-house software, a database, is being configured and populated for Flagstaff including inter-connectivity to financial and court software systems. Staff for ParkFlag is being hired. And, ParkFlag is seeking and will hopefully be setting up office space soon.

In addition, applications for employee permits have been published and are starting to come in. The residential neighborhoods are starting to organize and get the petitions completed to ask for the installation of residential parking permit controls. ParkFlag is negotiating for two additional parking lots to serve as additional employee parking. Many, many lesser tasks are being accomplished as well.

Attachments
Presentation ppt