Council Calls for Administration to Draft Strategies in Lieu of Parking Study

The City Council has asked that City Manager Tom Ambrosino use the next month to figure out some new parking strategies for the city instead of spending a hefty sum on a major Parking Study.

Ambrosino said the Council had instructed him to put out a bid for a parking study late last year, but there was only one bidder on the project. That bid did not include the whole city and was more than $200,000.

On Monday, the Council held a Committee meeting to discuss the next steps, steps that don’t include spending such a sum on a study.

“The Council at the end of the meeting on Monday wanted to explore the idea of internal remediation before proceeding with an expensive outside study,” he said.

Ambrosino said he and his administration will spend the next month “brainstorming” some ideas and recommendations to help with the parking bottleneck in many areas of the City – including the neighborhoods.

Ambrosino said they do see it as a problem in several aspects of the city.

“There’s no question it’s a problem in the city,” he said. “There are way too many cars and not enough parking spaces. There is no simple solution to that problem. Long-time, we do have an agreement as part of the Tobin Bridge Viaduct project to add 135 spaces only a short walk from downtown. That might help a little bit, but that’s three years away.”

One solution he will not suggest is to reduce parking requirements for new development. While many might think that is counter to solving a parking problem, many planners now believe that one solution to reducing the numbers of cars is to build developments without parking.

That won’t be a solution he suggests again, after having had lower parking requirements rejected by the Council only two years ago. “I don’t see the Council reducing parking any time soon,” he said. “It’s not something I’m going to re-submit.”

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