2. Tonight’s meeting
• Background
• Importance of Parking
• Importance of Mobility & Access
• Outline of the project
• Next steps / your role
• Feedback on draft Metroquest website
3. Background
• CMAP is the regional planning agency for the 7
counties around Chicago
• HUD Sustainable Communities Regional
Planning grant to assist with the
implementation of GO TO 2040
• Local Technical Assistance program
4. The Importance of Parking
• Parking is one of the largest single land uses in
our municipal footprints
• Parking influences the character, form,
function and flow of our communities
– Walking & biking
– Flooding, pollution
– Housing cost
• Important to local businesses
• Goal of creating livable communities
21. Evaluation
• Determine the available parking
• Create inventory tables
• Determine the occupancy by time of day for
several days
• Create maps showing occupancy by time of
day
30. Pricing
• Pricing is the most effective way to reduce
parking congestion
• The goal is to open one or two spaces per
block, not to make money
• Set the LOWEST price that will create parking
availability so that drivers willing to pay will be
able find a spot quickly, others will park further
from the high-demand area and walk
• Give people options, make parking friendly
31. Increasing supply
• Open new streets to parking
• Change time limit restrictions
• Angled parking on wide streets
• New lots
• Structured parking
32. Costs
• $4,000 - $8,000 /space for a surface lot
• $25,000-$35,000 /space for an above-ground structure
• $40,000-$70,000 /space for automated garage
• $40,000-$100,000 /space for an underground structure
33. Implementation
• After a variety of strategies are agreed
upon, a report will be drafted
• Implementation actions items will be
identified
• Reviews & revisions of draft plan
• Commitment from CMAP to follow
through with implementation for 2 years
For tonight’s meeting, I’ll start by giving a little background on this project, talk about the importance of parking and of mobility and access. I’ll outline the general steps we plan to take. And that will be the extent of my slides, and then we will discuss your role and the next steps we will take.
I am a Senior Planner at CMAP, which stands for Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and we are the regional planning agency for the 284 municipalities of Chicagoland. In October 2010, we were awarded a Sustainable Communities Regional Planning grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to assist with the implementation of GO TO 2040, our long-range comprehensive plan. With funding from this grant, CMAP has launched the Local Technical Assistance (LTA) program, which involves providing direct assistance to communities across the Chicago metropolitan region to undertake planning projects that advance the principles of GO TO 2040. And parking is one of those principles. And Hinsdale was one of the selected projects. We want to understand the particular complexities that influence the parking situation, in order to come up with strategies and policies to improve the livability of the area. I want to emphasize that our goal is to improve the vitality of the neighborhood and the local businesses. Many people have very passionate thoughts on parking, and we want to hear them all, but there are no easy answers or quick fixes. We want our conclusions and strategies to be based in observations and data, and we want the local government to make sound financial decisions.
It seems like every community has some sort of parking problem. If there isn’t a parking problem, you have a lot more to worry about because it means people aren’t coming to your downtown. Parking is quickly becoming the largest single land use in our downtowns and municipal “footprints,” and as such, deserves more attention than we’ve historically given it. Parking influences the character, form, function and flow of our communities. For example: Excessive parking keeps buildings widely spaced apart, rendering walking and bicycling unpleasant and unsafe. It increases runoff and the burden on our stormwater systems with flooding and pollution problems. For new developments, it makes the housing more expensive, regardless of resident demand, as the cost of parking is built into the cost of each unit. At the same time, parking is important to support a community's local businesses; finding the right balance between supply and demand -- as an economist would -- is the next step toward creating livable communities.
This is a northwestern suburban downtown; an affluent community along a Metra line whose residents want the city to provide more parking. The circle has a 1/4 - mile radius, a walkable length. (CLICK) The pink areas are surface parking lots. With the exception of Metra parking, all of the parking here is free, and not managed. And even with over 30% of their downtown turned a surface parking lot, they still believe that they need more.
This is a northwestern suburban downtown; an affluent community along a Metra line whose residents want the city to provide more parking. The circle has a 1/4 - mile radius, a walkable length. (CLICK) The pink areas are surface parking lots. With the exception of Metra parking, all of the parking here is free, and not managed. And even with over 30% of their downtown turned a surface parking lot, they still believe that they need more.
Without managing our parking, building additional parking won’t address the real problems.
The goal is thriving, livable communities. Our suburban downtowns cannot compete with the parking at a typical mall. Within this circle, over half of the area is dedicated to parking.
The goal is thriving, livable communities. Our suburban downtowns cannot compete with the parking at a typical mall. Within this circle, over half of the area is dedicated to parking.
This is downtown Hinsdale at the same scale. (CLICK) Rather than competing with the acres of free parking at malls, our downtowns need to compete on their own terms, offering high-quality, diverse, walkable places with excellent parking management, and improved mobility and access for all.
This is downtown Hinsdale at the same scale. (CLICK) Rather than competing with the acres of free parking at malls, our downtowns need to compete on their own terms, offering high-quality, diverse, walkable places with excellent parking management, and improved mobility and access for all.
This is Yorktown Center mall, (CLICK) with about 65% of land area for parking. There’s no comparison.
Yorktown Center. 65% parking
Hinsdale is not a mall. Am I right when I say that we can all agree that we don’t want Hinsdale to be a mall?
I’m going to go through a series of photos that explain why we need to plan for mobility and access, and why we need to think about how people access the neighborhood and our businesses, and how they get from one location to the next.This first photo shows us 24 cars in one block. (photos courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission)http://www.tjpdc.org/transportation/streetcapacity.asp
Here are the 24 drivers.(photos courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission)http://www.tjpdc.org/transportation/streetcapacity.asp
Here are 24 people walking and using bikes.(photos courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission)http://www.tjpdc.org/transportation/streetcapacity.asp
Here are 24 people on a bus.(photos courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission)http://www.tjpdc.org/transportation/streetcapacity.asp
Cars take up a lot of space. If we design our streets and manage our parking with mobility in mind, we can get a larger number of people into downtown without great sacrifice. (photos courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission)http://www.tjpdc.org/transportation/streetcapacity.asp
This goal of this project is to support your downtown through parking management, using the steps outlined in this paper. The first step is evaluation.
In order to come up with policy directives and strategies, we have to know what the current parking scene looks like. So we need to determine the available parking, create inventory tables, and determine occupancy by time of day for three days, and create maps showing the occupancy by time of day, and look at parking restrictions.
We have completed our initial data collection for Hinsdale. Here are the maps we made with the results. This is what your occupancy at 8 am, anything in blue is what we’re aiming for and anything in red is above that.
This is the occupancy at 10 AM
And here is Noon.
And here is 2 in the afternoon. So you can see with these maps, we can really start to tell a story and see where there are a lot of under-used streets.
After data collection, we begin the outreach and education phase (which continues throughout the project).
We have a public outreach strategy document that outlines how we will reach as many constituents as possible. Based on input collected from interviews, public meetings or workshops, and an interactive website, (CLICK) we’ll start to pull together strategies.
we’ll start to pull together strategies.
There are pricing strategies and non-pricing strategies to better manage the existing supply. Non-pricing strategies can include sharing arrangements with uses that have different peak demands (like churches w/ businesses), encouraging more active transportation – especially walking from those spaces further out! We can also look at the current parking restrictions to see if they could be changed.
Any economist will tell you that the most effective way to reduce demand for a limited supply of prime parking is to price it. Nobody likes to pay for parking, so we find our ways of getting around it – and that is what results in availability. The goal is to create availability where there is congestion–open up 1 or two spaces per block on each side of the street. You don’t want to send shoppers running to the mall, and it should not be used to generate revenue or fill budget gaps. That is why you set the price at the lowest price point that will create availability. You want to give people options, make it easy and friendly. You can even be so friendly as to return the extra revenue generated back to the street where it is collected in the form of street improvements, safety / lighting enhancements, free public wifi, etc. and involve the public in how they want it spent.
There is also the option of increasing supply, whether through changing restrictions on streets, adding capacity through angled parking where possible, paving over vacant lots, or building structured parking. But each of these options comes at a cost.
At about 4-8,000 for a surface space, 25 – 35,000 per space in an above-ground structure, 40-70 for a space in an automated garage, and 40-100,000 for an underground structure, parking is expensive. Generally speaking, it’s not uncommon for municipalities to build first, before managing their existing supply – because it seems easier, even if expensive. In addition to multi-million dollar investment, there are ongoing maintenance costs over its useful life. If repeated surveys of a community’s streets and lots consistently showed up “blue” and “red” in their occupancy survey, it might make sense to increase supply. Here, preliminary findings indicate that there are a lot of empty streets in the study area, and we think there are more options. We’ve decided to call this project “Innovation in Parking Management” because we think there are creative strategies that can be implemented to optimize the existing supply of parking in the Village’s greater downtown area. Whatever is ultimately proposed to manage the existing supply of spaces should be done with customers as the top priority. We hope to get input across the board on what is most important to them and other key user groups.
So we’re expecting the project to take about 10 months from now to implementation. We will develop a plan that will be reviewed by the Steering Committee, we’ll make revisions, work through the processes at Village Hall to get the plan approved and CMAP will follow-up for 2 years to help with any snags to the implementation process.
Thanks for listening. So that’s the general overview of the project. Are there any questions on how this process will work? Our outreach specialist, Berenice will talk about your role as a member of the Steering Committee.
Total costs for 15 municipal parking garages from various locations in northeastern Illinois, over the last couple decades. If drivers aren’t willing to spend $0.50 to park on the street, why do they expect the municipality to spend $30,000 on a parking spot?
This is a small town with smart parking. They have prioritized different areas based on demand. This incentivizes the use of your off-street parking, and encourages long-term parkers to park further from the high demand areas. In WPB, we don’t have a lot of parking lots to shift users onto, but maybe we’ll find certain underutilized streets. Other possible recommendations might include consolidated valet services, making some residential permit streets permitted at different times of the day.
They don’t even hide it. They know that people don’t want to pay. So they show people where they can get their free parking.
Getting the price right means charging the lowest price that will free up one or two spaces per block. These two blocks should not be charging the same rate! There is obviously more demand in the restaurant / bar / shopping district of Wicker Park.
This is Wicker Park at the same scale. Here, only 2.5% of the area in the circle is surface parking.
This is Wicker Park at the same scale. Here, only 2.5% of the area in the circle is surface parking.
