Parking Meters Are Popping Up Downtown

Video by Aja Philips and Story by Julia Adkins

 

ParkingOrdinance from Aja Phillips on Vimeo.

 

Parking in downtown seems to be a common concern among those who frequent downtown regularly.

The Kent City Council came up with a solution to this problem, a new parking plan for the city of Kent. “The plan looks at parking issues associated with the PARTA deck, the surface lots and the on-street parking,” said Bridget Susel, Community Development Director. “It is an approach to parking planning that makes sure all the parking elements complement each other and work to meet the various parking needs of the downtown stakeholders.”

“City Council adopted a parking strategy, with rates and parking options set in a way that allows prospective parkers to match the price point with level of access and convenience that they prefer,” said City Manager Dave Ruller.

The most recent addition to the parking plan put into action is the parking meters downtown.

“The meters are about step 4 in a multi-stage parking plan,” Ruller said, “that tires to thoughtfully balance a mix of paid and free long term parking, and short term parking, based on the types of business being served by the parking.”

 

 

 

The parking meters were introduced to a Streets, Sidewalks and Utilities Committee meeting in January 2014 by Susel. She researched different types of parking meters, searching for the best kind for Kent and walked downtown with a clipboard to find the exact destinations for the parking meters.

“She [Susel] was coming up with a list of logical locations for the installation of parking meters. She wanted to make sure that the spots made sense and wouldn’t interfere with anything that was already out in the public right of way,” Ruller said.

The parking meters are located in some of the two-hour parking areas in the city’s downtown district.

Tom Wilke, Economic Development Director, said that the city came to the conclusion to add parking meters with the help of the merchants and storeowners downtown. “The purpose of the meters is to create a turnover where people can run errands and shop for an hour or two, then free open the spots for another customer to use,” Wilke said.

 

 

TJ Ingersoll, owner of Fresco, a downtown restaurant, said he was happy to see the meters being installed. Ingersoll said that many downtown employees take the places outside his restaurant because they’re closer to the places they work.  He admitted that he was guilty of doing this as well on the colder days. “The meters will help open up those parking spaces to more customers.”

However, not all business owners downtown are happy about the installation of the meters.

 

Karen Barrett, owner of City Bank Antiques, thinks differently about the meters. “It’s another tax that the city is imposing on the community,” she said. Barrett said that she is concerned the community will be upset with the idea of having to pay to park downtown.

Barrett is not the only one in Kent who is unhappy about the parking meters, either. People who live downtown will also be affected by this installation, too.

Lia Arbogast, a manager of 157 Lounge downtown, recent graduate of KSU and resident of downtown is upset about the new parking plan. “It’s just really inconvenient that it’s already so limited as to where we can park, and then the fact that they’re putting meters in is just inconvenient to be paying a meter every two hours,” Arbogast said.

Sam Harris, a senior hospitality management major who also lives downtown, said she has a problem with parking too. “Parking is the only bad thing about living downtown,” said Harris. “They’re really strict about parking down here. I’ve spent so much money on parking tickets, but there’s really no where else for us to park.”

The meters, though, are not meant to create revenue for the city, according to Ruller and Susel.

“The city isn’t installing the meters for revenue,” said Ruller. “It’s to support the downtown businesses that asked for help getting long-term parkers from parking all day right in front of their stores. Our goal is to break even on the parking meters, but until they are operational it is difficult to predict the revenues or costs.”

Susel said that the city is actually forecasting that the program will more than likely cost more to keep operational than is generated in the meter proceeds.

The amount being charged is 25 cents for 15 minutes or $1.00 per hour. The meters will be operational Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. According to Susel, the installation of 223 meters translates to a potential maximum of $80 per meter, per day; $400 per meter, per week; or roughly $90,000 per year.

However, Susel said that the figure will actually be lower than that since the ordinance that was passed for the implementation of the parking meter system also has them scheduled to be off on holidays and other “mayor designated” special days, which is to include days such as Black Friday and the Kent Heritage Festival.

“The new ordinance that was adopted for the on-street meter program does establish a dedicated reserve fund for meter revenue and expenses to be tracked,” said Susel. “So once the program is actually operational, the City will have a mechanism for tracking the actual financial data associated with the program and will be presenting this information to Kent City Council for discussion and possible amendments to the ordinance if any such need for a change is identified.”

The meters are set to be installed in their entirety and go live in March.