By Brett Wood, CAPP, PE
For the past 12 months, we have been pontificating about what the post-pandemic world might look like:
- Would we all just work from home forever?
- Would we have all of our goods delivered out of convenience?
- Would the state of our downtowns and campuses forever be shifted?
- Would people even commute and park anymore?
If you talked to some people this time one year ago (me included), you’d have thought the new environment would be a completely different world than the “before times,” while other people were convinced we would bounce back and go right back to where we were. And as with everything in life, the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle: A little bit of good from the before, a little bit of good from the quarantine days, and you find yourself in a post-pandemic world that begins to reshape life without radically transforming our industry’s landscape.
I’ve had the good fortune of doing some interesting work with several programs over the past few months, evaluating what change was beginning to look like–analyzing data and patterns about how people were commuting and parking and what those shifts taught us. As the country opened up further and further in the summer and fall of 2020, we began to see more people come back into the office or emerge for destination-based trips. And as we’ve entered into 2021, we can begin to start seeing some of the patterns that will shape our industry, including
hybrid work models (two to three days per week in the office) that create alternative commute patterns
Shifts in demand peaks, like higher demand levels in the evening for destination-based demands (restaurants and entertainment districts), are likely different in every community. As a parking program manager, it’s critical to begin looking deeper into your data now to understand how the new demand patterns will affect your programs, policies, and practices. Begin to review permit patron patterns: How often are they coming in and when are they coming in? Look at transient patterns: When do they occur and how does this compare to similar times in 2019? Looking at how those shifts are occurring can begin to help you shape what you offer your patrons and how you manage your system. And as the country returns to a more stable activity pattern, you will be prepared to define what the new normal is for your program to serve the community around you.
Brett Wood, CAPP, PE, is president of Wood Solutions Group.
By Rita Pagan, DES
By Lesli Stone, CAPP
There’s a special kind of demand for outdoor activities and a feeling of normal this spring, including the return of flea markets. But when dicey weather, a need for social distancing, and a desire to include those who both drive and walk all come into play, what’s a city to do? In Pittsburgh, it’s all coming together to give new meaning to the phrase “garage sale,” offering a great new example of how parking organizations have flexed to help their communities in unprecedented situations.
As travel slowly ramps back up after COVID-19, airports are donating their under-used parking lots and garages as vaccination sites for their communities:
By Jennifer Tougas, CAPP, PhD
Cities stopped charging for parking at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when there weren’t enough cars to justify it and businesses were struggling to survive. Now, at least one city is using free parking–with a catch–to try and get shoppers, diners, and tourists to come back en masse.
It’s no news to industry members that the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a change of thinking around parking–after all, parking and mobility professionals are the ones who largely thought through and enacted curb management strategies to help businesses and communities. But as the larger world takes notice, the mainstream media is asking: What does this mean for the future?
When COVID-19 hit last year, boosting contactless parking options was a no-brainer–nobody wanted to touch anything more than they absolutely had to. But as the pandemic dragged on, it became clear that some operations were going to have to think their permit systems, and nowhere was that more clear than university campuses. With fewer people going to campus every day of every week, the monthly or semester permit system needed to flex.
“When young girls watched Kamala Harris take the oath of office as the first woman to become U.S. vice president, they could envision their own future. It seemed a moment that showed us that a woman can achieve anything,” wrote Miami Parking Authority CEO Alejandra “Alex” Argudin, CAPP,