Tag Archives: parking

IPMI Blog, Resources

Saying Yes–More Than You Usually Would

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Line of Lamborghinis in a parking garageBy Gary Means, CAPP

OK, I know in the parking and transportation business we often have to say “no”. No parking at a fire hydrant! No motorcycles in the gated garage! No walking around in the bus when its in motion! No dance parties on the garage roof!

Many of our rules are for our customers’ safety, but we have to admit there are some rules that are still in place because we’ve always done it that way or it’s too much administrative work to do it differently. Some questionable rules might be “no reserved parking,” or “no sharing of permits.” We have an ordinance in Lexington, Ky., that says we can write a citation on a vehicle parked with its keys left in the ignition. Honestly, we ignore that one.

My point is that maybe there are some rules or policies that don’t make sense today or are one-sided, and by that I mean rules that are good for our organization but maybe not so good for the customer.

About a year ago, the Lexington Parking Authority was asked if a Lamborghini car club could park their vehicles in one of our garages for a few days. Lot’s of reasons for a “No!” popped into my head, the least of which was: Do I really want to have more than $7 million worth of Lamborghinis parking in our garage? What if some concrete falls? What if one of them gets keyed? After conversing with my team, we decided to allow this group to park with us–they definitely had the money to pay for the additional reserved rate and hire their own security. We went on to coordinate a wash station for them in the back of the garage and helped find safe places for those arriving by transport to unload safely, and it was a pretty cool experience. Most importantly one of our downtown hotels gained a piece of business that brought in over $20,000 in three days.

The group had a great time in Lexington and I’m sure some of them or their friends will return to our friendly town someday and spend more money.

During this time of uncertainty and change, hopefully this little story might get you thinking about ways your organization might change to create opportunities in your community. BONUS: If you are really into sports cars or just like bright colors, click here to see some of the pics we took while they stayed with us.

Gary Means, CAPP, is executive director of the Lexington & Fayette County, Ky., Parking Authority and chair-elect of IPMI’s Board of Directors.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Parking Garage Lauded for Drive-through Art Show in Dallas

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Neon Art Sign in Urban SettingArea 3, a drive-through art show in a downtown Dallas parking garage, brought together 11 local artists to immerse guests in light, sound, and color and is being applauded by media and the public there.

“This drive-through exhibition curated by the biennial festival Aurora is easily the coolest art event in Dallas since the pandemic forced social distancing and isolation,” says the Dallas Morning News. Eleven pieces in the DalPark Garage will offer an artistic respite for drivers through Jan. 1.

“My only complaint is that it’s easy to move through the experience too fast,” writes reporter Lauren Smart. “Even after months living at a slower pace, it’s instinctual to rush through a parking garage, tailing the car in front of you or propelled by the one behind. With an extended hand, someone could perhaps signal to each car: Stay here, if only for five minutes, look at the lights, listen to the sounds.”

The experience was designed to take up to an hour to drive through. Read more about it here. And if that wets your whistle about art and parking, read about the Norwalk, Conn., Parking Authority’s efforts to install public art in its town, in the October issue of Parking & Mobility.

IPMI Blog, Resources

A New Kind of Crisis Management

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By Casey Jones, CAPP

Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” In spite of the tragedy and difficulty we currently face during this once-in-a-century health crisis, my optimistic nature sees hope (and not political cynicism) in what Emanuel was getting at, and I see it play out in organizations within our industry.

In weekly state and regional association virtual meetings, countless stories are told of how changes are being made to improve safety, reduce costs, and adjust policies and procedures to accommodate new customer needs in spite of–and to a large extent because of–the current health crisis. We have moved past any initial paralysis brought on by COVID-19 restrictions and we’re trying new things and succeeding. I was on a state association call recently and the discussion turned to a strategy one university was using to accommodate their permit holders. Previously the school had only offered annual permits but has expanded to shorter-term permits to allow more flexibility.

There are other examples as well, from moving to touchless and online payment systems to flexible permitting and renewal options, all of which consultants like me have been suggesting for years. So what’s different? COVID-19, of course. But understanding that changes are possible because of the pandemic won’t be enough to sustain them beyond the COVID-induced “pilot” phase. Many of the changes we’re making now we’ll want to keep in place in the future when we return to normalcy, and we should use this time to fully grasp why we’re able to make difficult but necessary changes to our programs. We need to dissect each decision to determine exactly what specific factors resulted in approval. Knowing this will help us sustain the positive improvements we’re making now and provide a roadmap for future program improvements.

Casey Jones, CAPP, is senior parking and mobility planner with DESMAN.

IPMI Webinar: Curbing COVID-19 at the Curb, presented by Matthew Darst, Conduent Transportation.

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Curbing COVID-19 at the Curb

Matthew Darst, JD; Director of Curbside Management; Conduent Transportation

Register here for this webinar.

Or purchase the entire 2021 professional development series bundle.

How we think about traveling and commuting in the cities where we work and live has changed dramatically with the spread of COVID-19 . We drive less, eschew public transportation, and are less likely to use shared mobility devices.  This new definition of mobility has exacerbated declining municipal revenues. Cities and states face a unique challenge: stimulate local economies and generate revenue all while working to reopen responsibly to prevent new hot spots of infection and protect public health.

Curbside technologies offer unique solutions to help fund government programs while safeguarding the public. Curbside technologies can help monitor and mitigate viral spread, provide economic relief to constituents, and create a path for municipal revenue recovery. Cities have an opportunity to quickly pivot and utilize metered parking, permit parking, citation issuance and processing, and data science to achieve critical municipal goals.

Attendees will:

  • Identify curbside strategies for reducing the risk of contagion, providing relief to customers, and helping fund critical municipal goals.
  • Assess curbside data for its effectiveness as an early indicator of people congregating/flaunting social distancing guidelines, the need for enforcement, and the spread of COVID-19.
  • Detail best practices and measure the effectiveness of amnesty and relief programs for constituents and revenue recovery efforts.

Offers 1 CAPP Credit towards application or recertification.

Presenter:

Matthew Darst, JD; Director of Curbside Management; Conduent Transportation

Matt Darst, JD, oversees Conduent Transportation’s analytics team, helping cities use data to better manage curbside resources to promote social equity, improve pedestrian safety, and increase physical distancing during the pandemic. Prior to joining Conduent, he served in the public sector for 16 years.

Register here.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Recruiting Professionals into Parking: A Conversation

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the parking podcast“I fell into parking.”

“I never thought I’d work in this industry.”

We hear it all the time–longtime parking and mobility professionals say they never saw themselves in this industry but loved it once they fell or backed into it. But what if there was a concerted effort to make people pick parking–to make working in parking a career goal?

Kevin White, AICP, Parking and Mobility Consultant with Walker Consultants, talked to some top experts about that very question and came up with some great answers and strategies for recruiting top professionals into parking. It’s eye-opening and offers terrific takeaways and might just land you your next great staff member. To read the article published in the July issue of Parking & Mobility, click here.

Kevin talks about the article, Walker Consultants, and parking in the latest episode of The Parking Podcast (IPMI is a strategic partner of The Parking Podcast). Click here to listen.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Forbes: Considering Limited-access Parking for Autonomous Vehicles

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Limited-access highways, which offer high-speed roadway without much interaction with adjoining property or areas, are considered a great proving ground for autonomous vehicles, allowing them to travel quickly while minimizing the potential for accidents. Today, Forbes wonders if a similar concept would be prudent for parking lots, which may present more dangers for AVs than roads.

“For autonomy, parking lots are a very difficult environment because of the complexity of participants and the irregular travel patterns. Parking lots have dynamic actors such as pedestrians, shopping carts, children, trucks, and oh yes automobiles,” writes the site.

The article suggests a valet-style model for AV-friendly parking lots, offering (verbatim):

  1. Dropoff: Customers would enter the curb-side for dropoff and direct their car to self-park with an approximate expectation of pickup.
  2. Routing: Automobiles would enter a limited access parking lot (physically isolated) and be directed by the local Parking Lot Electronic Manager(PLEM) to an appropriate spot with a route.
  3. Packing: From time-to-time, PLEM would ask the car to move in order to allow other cars to pick up curbside.
  4. Pickup: Finally, upon summon or based on approximate scheduling, the automobile would make its way to the curbside pickup.

It also suggests splitting parking lot capacity into managed and conventional areas.

Read the whole story here and let us know in the comments: What do parking professionals think?

IPMI Blog, Resources

Beach Town Businesses Battle Paid Parking Proposal

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Sullivan’s Island, S.C., like a lot of cities and towns, is facing a significant revenue shortfall because of COVID-19. But when the town council proposed instituting paid parking, the beach town’s business owners revolted, saying they’d lose customers if people had to pay to park.

“This is not a way to try to keep people from coming. We want to support our businesses, we want them to continue to be popular with the people in the Charleston area,” Mayor Patrick O’Neil told local channel 5 news. “But if we need to have decent streets for people to park on for those businesses, we need to be able to provide them with fire and rescue and police coverage while they are here. We need to get the money from somewhere.”

Business owners banded together to install a “No Paid Parking” banner and asked their customers to voice displeasure to the town council, which plans to meet this week to talk about the proposal.

Read the whole story here. And let us know in the comments: What advice would you give both the town council and business owners in this situation?

IPMI Blog, Resources

Automated, Valet Garage Concept Open in Detroit

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a self-parking car outside Ford's demonstration garage
Image: Ford Media Center

A partnership between automaker Ford and two tech companies has opened an automated, valet garage demonstration site in Detroit, in the same corridor where 40 miles of AV-only highway lanes are planned.

Bosch, Bedrock Technologies, and Ford worked together to build the site, which is available for visits by appointment. A Ford Escape outfitted with sensors and other systems finds and maneuvers itself into empty parking spaces without a driver behind the wheel. The car can sense and react to obstacles, including people, in its way. And the companies say the garage could accommodate 20 percent more cars than traditional structures, which could be outfitted with the technology to convert to automated valet. Garages built this way could also offer charging, refueling, or car wash services.

The demonstration site will be open through September. Read more about it on Ford’s website.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Creating Alternatives to Adaptive Reuse

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Building with LegosBy Brett Wood, CAPP, PE

I’ve been a parking consultant for awhile now and have done my fair share of downtown parking studies. Most of them start with trying to define how many parking spaces are occupied at peak conditions. As I look back at this experience, I cannot recall one downtown parking study where every space was full. In most cases, the downtown (or campus) parking system is usually 50 to 75 percent full in places where there are problems driving the need for the study. These problems tend to be localized to a small area and the perception of the problem is often larger than the real problem. In so many of these cases, I’ve pushed for better and more efficient use of the entire system rather than trying to construct more parking spaces to alleviate a localized perception problem.

While this solution–the concept of sharing public and private parking spaces–is not new, it is becoming a solution we truly need to focus on. Coming into 2020, we were intently focused on how changes in mobility, transport, vehicular autonomy, and demographics might affect the parking we manage and operate. In an instant, our focus switched to longer-term effects of the pandemic: remote work, the economy, and how our cities will look in the years to come. These issues–both pre- and post-pandemic–will drive our communities’ parking systems for years to come. It’s time we start thinking a little differently about how we adapt and evolve.

On August 12, I’ll be leading a webinar for IPMI about Creating Alternatives to Adaptive Reuse. The presentation will focus on how we need to shift our thinking to handle these issues and prepare for the future of our communities. The session will review trends affecting our industry and options for moving forward that include business as usual, building parking with the principles of adaptive reuse, and an alternative approach that focuses on more effective planning and management. Hope you’ll join me to learn how we can shape the future of our communities effectively—click here to register.

Brett Wood, CAPP, PE, is president of Wood Solutions Group.