New Job, New City, Same Parking Woes

I recently changed employers from one City to another City. First let me say, it was a good move for me professionally. I enjoy my new position and am very happy where I am. If you are unhappy where you are and wondering if the grass is greener on the other side, I can tell you, the grass has been greener for me….just make sure you do your research first.

With that being said, as I look out my office window at a new City street, I see some commonalities. Parking is still parking. Most people want a convenient, easily accessible place to park without paying for it. As we all know, parking is never free. I recently attended a community meeting discussing the cost of parking. While I sat at the meeting, I heard the same comments (the exact same words) from the community members that I had heard from community members at a different City meeting in a different City.

As a newbie, it was fun to correlate the speakers with other speakers from previous meetings and know there always seems to be the theater owner, the small shop owner, the person that doesn’t live or work in the City, and the person that just shows up for every government meeting regardless of the topic. If you have sat through enough community parking meetings, I am sure you can visualize your ‘regulars’. Ultimately the point of all these meetings is for us as parking professionals to hear the community members, take their input and feedback, make them feel heard, and do our best to make changes that benefit everyone.

So, what can we do to make changes to benefit everyone? I think the first step is education; educating our community members, educating our staff, and educating our public officials. To educate, we must first have the facts. Making data-based decisions is always better than responding to perception. Before you walk into community meetings or Council presentations, make sure you have factual occupancy and turnover data. Make sure you know the streets, the signs, the existing parking demand, and the stakeholders. Once you have all the facts, you can (hopefully) create a parking management program that offers convenient, easily accessible, seamless parking that people don’t mind paying for.

Always remember, as parking professionals, we all hear very similar things each day, we are all working towards similar goals, and we are a community. SWPTA offers some of the best networking in the industry. If you aren’t a member yet, why not? I hope I will see all of you at the SWPTA Conference in October. Be sure to reach out, I always like to hear parking stories.