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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParking Advisory Board - Minutes - 06/04/2021 PARKING ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR Monday, June 14, 2021, 5:30 PM Zoom meeting 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair, Hill, called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm. 2. ROLL CALL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: CITY STAFF PRESENT Nora Hill, Chair Drew Brooks, Transit Director Adam Eggleston, Vice Chair Eric Keselburg, Parking Manager Barbara Wilkins Danna Varnell, Business Support Dorothy (Dottie) Spivak Lauren Skinner BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: NONE PUBLIC PRESENT: NONE OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE: NONE 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – MOTION TO APPROVE MARCH 2021 MINUTES a. Approved by Eggleston, second by Hill. 4. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 5. NEW BUSINESS  Skinner - Will there be a new parking structure/garage at the old Kmart/new King Soopers? • Keselburg – previous discussions did not support a parking structure in the center of town. • The rationale was that parking/mobility hub options would be better suited at/around the periphery so that single-occupancy vehicles did not drive to the mid-town area, but rather utilized public Council Liaison: Julie Pignataro Chair: Nora Hill Vice Chair: Adam Eggleston Staff Liaison: Drew Brooks (970) 221-6386 Administrative Support: Danna Varnell (970) 224-6161 DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 2 transportation. • Eggleston – Has there been any conversations about the Parking garage at Peterson Toyota about using their back lot as a partial partnership for parking/parking garage? Brooks – is not aware of any conversations regarding putting a parking garage here. The West Elizabeth corridor is our first next step in the BRT world. We can have conversations about the Harmony corridor in the future. At the old Kmart location, we have observed that a lot of the folks parking at this location currently and some are riding MAX. They are parking here and walking to campus like the veterinary school and other locations on campus. Last spring, we intended to do intercept survey, asking residents what their reason for parking there, where they were going, etc. to learn what the uses were there. Due to the pandemic, we were unable to do an in-person survey. This is still on our radar to accomplish. Anecdotally, it appears that many folks are parking there and not getting on the MAX and walking across to university property. Skinner – there appears to be a need for a structure in that area.  Skinner - Update on the Max bus stop occupancy data. Troutman and Swallow is where I have recently had parking issues. There appear to be a lot of vehicles at these locations that park there for days/weeks at a time. • Keselburg – The last study that we did was Q1 of 2019 and it was robust. We can send that report out to new and current PAB members to show you what that study looked like. We must do further studies for cause of action. As far as parking along the MAX line, these are the designated spaces we have (referencing the .ppt presentation, page 5). Park-n-Ride lots at the following stations: o Downtown Transit Center/Civic Center Parking Structure. 900 spaces – pay-to-park o University Station - CSU pay-to-park o Drake Station - 79 spaces - free o Swallow Station - 16 spaces - free o Troutman Station - 6 & 12 spaces - free o South Transit Center - 171 spaces - free • Brooks – we need to investigate these lots to make sure we do not have vehicles stay there for long periods of time. This is not the intended use for these lots. • Eggleston – Can we investigate the options for the Target lot or behind the Barnes and Noble Book Store? There does not appear to be people utilizing these parking spaces. Brooks – this may be a good opportunity there. Keselburg – would like to get a handle on DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 3 this area for a longer-term use and will investigate this. Spivak – is there signage on these lots that indicates “no overnight parking”? Keselburg – believes the signage specifies MAX parking only on the south side but will verify this is correct. Wilkens – how will the City enforce this? Wilkens also recalls in a past PAB meeting, that King Soopers is moving into the old Kmart area and that they were not interested in giving up any of their parking, along with Peterson Toyota, from a previous conversation at a PAB meeting. Brooks – this is not correct. There will still be spaces available at the King Soopers location, as this is part of the developmental agreement for this area with King Soopers (Kroger). If we find that most folks using that lot are not using the MAX, this could initiate a discussion around if we need to do permitting in that lot. Research will be done in the future to determine the use of this lot. Hill – regarding overnight parking, we do not want to encourage people to drive home drunk, we just want to give them an option to stay overnight.  Skinner - Disabled parking in Old Town occupancy data. • Devoted number of spaces? Are there any City incentives/requirements? Discuss the lack of & accessibility. Keselburg – ADA parking stalls in the Old Town area, they are designated by the engineering department as how many per space. Community feedback is also considered to meet the needs of location and block face. Per the PROWAG (Public Rights-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines). Refer to the presentation, page 7. Skinner – is concerned that there are not enough ADA spaces available in Old Town and recommends that we get more. She is also concerned about the width of the spaces in the parking garages. Brooks – these spaces are under a different regulation that a normal parking space. We have addressed this with the Commission on Disabilities at least once, to try and get some feedback. Currently, there are no time limits on those spaces, and this was the request from the Commission on Disabilities. There is not very much turn-over in these spaces. We do not have a regulation in place on how to turn over these spaces quickly. Any vehicle that has an ADA license plate/placard, does not have a time restriction on any place the ADA vehicle is parked. This is in our local traffic code and a state regulation. Spivak – there is not enough turn-over in the spaces downtown. Wilkens – what would it take to make the ADA spots like the regular parking spots with 2- hour parking or double it to 4-hours so there is no parking overnight or for days? Keselburg- this would require and updated code, with Council support for that code to change. Any ADA can park in any parking space, for any period. This would probably be the same, even if we had metered parking. We would work with the Parking DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 4 Advisory Board and the Commission on Disabilities to get ideas on what this would look like. Brooks – typically in a metered situation, example: College & Mountain Avenues, we would want the most turn over, speaking conceptionally, we would want a time limit. Possibly extending the stay longer. Where there is need for less turn-over in town, may have a longer time limit. You would still have to pay to park in these locations, if this is the type of model the City went to.  Skinner – On-street dining and removal of the barricades. • The “parklettes” are fully supported by the State and City leadership to help with the downtown business recovery efforts. Engineering is managing what those space use and size. Engineering is just one of about seven different departments involved in what those look like. There is an emergency order that will allow them until September. We are looking at code changes to help support them and if the business chooses to relinquish them, then the City will go in and remove them and repurpose those spaces. We are also looking at what the long-term use would look like. Skinner – total recovery effort, these are not conducive to helping get back, they are taking up parking space, they are an eye sore, and they cause traffic accidents because people cannot see around the barriers. The issues that are being heard is that the businesses that do not have these patios, are losing places for their customers to park. Keselburg – downtown parking is not a destination parking spot, it is a destination parking system, so no one should have the expectation that they can park in front of the business, but we want to utilize the system of parking and use the parking structures. Currently, parking directly in front of a business is being impacted due to these barricades. Brooks – this is a city policy and involves the DDA. Wilkens – how many spots does each restaurant get? Keselburg – early on, when the requests were made and the shut- down created limited seating capacity inside, the City did work with the businesses that requested these outside spaces to make is usable for what their purpose was. Last count was 68 parking spaces that were being designated for outdoor dining. It is impactful to the block face. Wilkens – some businesses are using the alley ways for additional seating. Allowing restaurants to use these additional spaces takes away from the retail businesses that could use those spaces for parking near or in front of their stores. Hill – hears the opposite point from local businesses. Skinner – is concerned for the businesses that have these barricades in parking spaces, the curb appeal, and states that since indoor dining is now allowed, these should be removed. Eggleston – economically and politically, believes that leaving the outdoor dining spaces that are DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 5 there currently, leads to more tax revenue generation by restaurants out-weighs the retail revenue by a large margin. Removing these too prematurely could have a large impact. With the states order with to-go alcohol allowed through 2022 or 2023, we may see these extended outdoor patios here longer based on revenue generation and when it comes to political atmosphere, more consumers, and taxpayers like them, they will stay longer. Spivak – we were downtown last week eating on a patio near the street and there were many loud vehicles driving by the patio, which made dining there unbearable. Why don’t they put the dining in the alleys? The corner of Mountain and College is a very disagreeable place to try to enjoy a meal outside. Eggleston – most alleys are for fire access. Brooks – believes this will become a council topic at tomorrow night’s council meeting. b. Eggleston – RFP update on Mobile Parking app.  Keselburg – we did prepare a request for information, RFI, in March just to see what our options and availability were. It was review and we are working with City purchasing now. This will go out publicly.  Eggleston –FC Parking app is no longer available on Androids/Android store. Keselburg – will reach out to our IT department and check with the vendor. c. Eggleston – Update on Linden Street process.  Council Staff report –  Tuesday, June 15th  Phase 2 – construction planned to begin January 2022 (following Holidays)  Eggleston – will they be putting in the raised stop (posts) on Riverside and Linden?  Keselburg – there are shifts in designs but has not heard an update. d. Eggleston - Paid Parking pilot – what are the next steps and how do we implement?  Keselburg –Through Mobile License Plate Recognition data collection efforts Parking Services was able to compile point-in-time information specific to:  Occupancy  Duration of stay  Unique vehicles served  Conducted data collection: Summer 2020  Just completed subsequent round of data collection: June 2nd – 5th, 2021. This information is being compiled and will be shared.  Average Occupancy by date and daypart – see presentation, page 13.  When discussing on-street paid parking there are several factors to consider: • Dynamic pricing DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 6 • Pay to stay • Duration of free session • Block face(s) / area to regulate  Spivak – will people pay for parking after 6:00 pm? Keselburg – stated that we have not had any formal conversations regarding what this looks like. Greeley and Estes Park now have paid parking. Fort Collins has two different parking users – the dinner group and the bar group. There is a lot to consider if this is the route we will be taking. Brooks – when having conversations with the City Manager, the previous council, and the new council, we have not discussed this topic. We have a lot of work to do to bring them up to speed. Hill – we have been talking about the pilot for at least 5 years. We have been talking about this since the inception of the Parking board and have made very little to no progress. We may not have any public push back if the Paid Parking Pilot is popular. Can we move something forward to get this pilot moving forward? Eggleston – can we show cost initiative? Can we put out an RFI or reach out to Greeley to see what kind of system or equipment they used to implement theirs so we have a dollar point to give to City Council on what it would cost to pilot this? Keselburg – one piece of consideration is if we do a pilot, and make it App based, which has a significant cost saving verses putting in kiosks on the street. Signage and business outreach phasing, also needs to be considered. The sensors that we are using today do not meet our standards and we will need to figure out something different. The technology has changed. We could do a pilot, for relatively a low cost, depending on a few factors. If the community wants us to have option that anyone can pay, this will require a kiosk as not everyone has a smart phone, and this could be more expensive. Our goal is to have more people paying for parking than paying for citations. Skinner – the revenue should go back to Parking and the parking system if you have excess revenue.  Wilkens – Years ago the board agreed extend the parking enforcement. It sounds like there is money for other things, but not enforcement. We also agreed as a board about the signage. This has not changed either. Both are things we agreed to do. Keselburg – when the pandemic hit, we had to find a 10% savings across the board. One being the sign updates in downtown, and we shelved it. We never got consensus of what the sign should look like. There were conversations about just the 2-hour parking in general and we also had conversations of doing an 8-8 Monday through Saturday and really specify the time regulated spaces are going to be managed. This project was shelved. This is a budget offer that I submitted this year for 2022. So, if we get that funding, regardless, the signs do need replaced, so we will have further conversations. If we extend those hours of enforcement, we have done some off-hour parking structure management of users, so we do know that there is a need into the evening hours a bit. If we extend our hours of enforcement, then that would open the ability for our Parking Enforcement Officers to regulate that user. Right now, the signs are the limit about how long in the evening we can enforce on-street parking. Brooks – believes that there is not a revenue increase by shifting our hours unless we are funding more Parking Enforcement Officers. We would have the same number of Enforcement Officers, DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 7 spread over different hours. Keselburg – it would not be a revenue increase by department, it would be some community impact, good or bad. Brooks – if this had been a normal year, we would have made that change. We would have had the signs changed. We currently have two Parking Enforcement positions open that we had intended to fill with staff were intended to work later in the evening and weekend hours. Because we had to freeze the budget, we did not hire those two positions and we had to dump the sign project. Skinner – was the signage already ordered for the pilot program? Keselburg – the signs that we are talking about specifically is in the downtown area, which are in need due to wear and tear. Even now with technology, it was almost better that we had to wait. With new technology and QR codes, we can provide a lot more information on the actual signage if people choose to use that. We can refer them to parking garages, hour limits, etc. Eggleston – we are in the mid-cycle of the BFO process for 2022, how many requests is Parking putting in? Keselburg – we have an ongoing offer in Parking with costs associated of approximate 2.3 million. The other ongoing offer is the Firehouse Alley Parking Structure security upgrade. Aging vehicles, aging equipment – we are trying to replace older equipment. Downtown sign replacement - $35k and the critical structural and preventative maintenance, this is for repairs that were recommended to be made in April 2021, we are still trying to find an option for some money to be allocated this year, if not, it’s a 2022 offer and part of the scalability is for the elevator issues that we are having at the Civic Center Parking Garage to do the phasing of the pre-construal maintenance on the elevator issues and then phasing into the preventative maintenance. These are the offers that we have submitted. Eggleston – we need to start looking at the City Council’s agendas to see when they are bringing up these topics for discussions for the BFO’s and speak at City Council and support anything that you want to see firmed up from the Parking offers. This is the second year in a row that I was not invited to participate on the BFO cycle. Keselburg – they should reintroduce the public next cycle. Eggleston – so if anything does not make this round, next year we will go back to a two-year budget cycle and we can have more input or try to put a pilot project funding together before the next budget cycle, which would start springtime of next year. Keselburg – this is a one- year cycle for 2022 funding starting in springtime, we will start doing offers again for the 2022 – 2023 cycle. It is typically a two-year cycle. Wilkens – did the DDA offer to put some money into fixing the garages and then they were told not to put that money in there? Keselburg – no, the DDA owns the Old Town parking structure, we manage it and collect the revenue. If there is any maintenance to this garage, this is out of our budget. If there is any liability stuff, for example, if a car ran into a pole and they had an insurance claim against it, the DDA would work with them. Maintenance and wear & tear on the facilities, comes out of the Parking budget. We shared our offer. Last year we had an offer that was not funded for repairs, and of course we modified it based on where we are at. The DDA did make a letter of recommendation to Council to fund it. Again, this year, we did share with the DDA since one of their parking structures is in the packet for more offers, so if they make a recommendation to Council otherwise this year. Eggleston – do you think with the timing for the next budget cycle, do you think Parking would be able to put together DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 8 an offer for the Paid Pilot Program offer for the BFO? Keselburg – we can compile some numbers. I would like to see the RFP and decide about it. Ideally, the cost accrued would be the sign change-out. Eggleston – what is the time frame if we can get movement on it? We may have to get in front of council a couple of times before next year and I want to see if we can get something on the books or in our goal structure to have a plan together towards the end of this year/first part of next year where we can see some progress through either Paid Pilot Program either through BFO or just general budget concessions if it is not overly expensive. Skinner – back to the considerations on parking spaces, if our budget is failing that badly, that we cannot even afford our own enforcement, maybe this is something that we directly need address? It is an easy way with no overhead. Wilkens – one of the other issues in the parking garage, they have no way to see if they have paid for parking or not. One of the other things we have been told is that they would put some cameras in so if people do not pay, which is common now since the gates were removed. I was told that the gates were removed because of repair costs of the gate. When I was asked the price of a gate, I was told that it was hard to pinpoint the cost. If there is money available, it should go into make sure that people pay for the garages, which is to get the cameras in there. That was one of the main causes of our revenue being down. Keselburg – Wilkens and I had email discussions regarding the gates to the gateless system, the repairs with the down gates were only one piece of consideration. As far as enforcement or management of the paid sessions, we do a really good job during the day. We have been doing some off- hour enforcement to make sure people are initiating sessions for the last couple of months to hopefully change behavior because we are seeing the same thing. The conversation regarding the fixed LPR, which is another piece you mentioned is having a camera into and out of the garage, that is one part of the RFP that we are asking is having a Wallet as another option of payment or to site if they pull in or out without initiating a session. That was a conversation we had with the DDA in February of 2020, weeks prior to the shutdown, so that conversation of a fixed LPR system in the garages was also shelved because of user use and the pandemic. We mentioned early on of the transition we anticipated a dip in revenue of about 10%, we saw a dip of about 25%. We got the revenue bleed from Old Town Parking Structure and Civic Center back up to where we anticipated, and we also saw a revenue increase in Firehouse Alley. We believe, (conjecture) that the reason is Firehouse Alley was built with a gateless system and that is what the users were used to, whereas the others were transitioned. We are watching what that trend is as people start coming back in. Our occupancy rates are still very low in the parking structures, so it is difficult to get actuals based on user until we start seeing some increase in vehicle traffic in those. We have already shifted some of our operation to match some of the concerns that Barb is discussing. Wilken – I would suggest putting in cameras. Keselburg – we already have cameras on the first floor where people drive in and drive out. There is liability from a safety perspective putting in false cameras. Skinner – what about a pressure plate at the gate? Brooks – these would not be easier or less expensive to maintain. Keselburg – part of the consideration with the gates is that they create a bottleneck at 5:00 when most DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 0 6/14/2021 – MINUTES Page 9 people are exiting the garage to go home. Right now, with the prepaid system, the traffic flow into and out of the garage is quicker and more convenient. Once we have the RFP in hand, we will share the results with this group. By the next meeting Keselburg should have a report on the most recent mobile LPR data provides us, as far as occupancy, duration of stay, and unique user. The RFP has not been put out publicly yet. Keselburg can update the Board where they are at in the process at the next meeting. Brooks – the purchasing process is currently bottlenecked due to everyone that was on hold last year is now getting through the process.  Wilkens – what decision was made to hold these meetings monthly or quarterly? • Eggleston – would like to keep these monthly to keep our action items moving forward. • Vote to keep a monthly meeting verses moving to a quarterly meeting – o Yes, keep it monthly: Hill, Eggleston, Spivak, Skinner o Neutral vote to keep it monthly – Wilkens e. Hill – update on meeting in person  Brooks – City Council is still meeting remotely. Varnell will check the City’s position on this and report back to the Board. 6. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS 7. OTHER BUSINESS a. Discuss what date that the new council liaison, Julie Pignataro, can attend a future PAB meeting.  Varnell to send a Doodle Poll to the Board to find a suitable date. 8. ADJOURNMENT a. Eggleston made a motion to adjourn, Skinner second the vote. These minutes have been unanimously approved by the Parking Advisory Board on _______________ X_____________________________ Date: ____________ Eleanor Hill, Parking Advisory Board Chair DocuSign Envelope ID: BC4487C9-F44B-446A-A5A3-7F0B7CC54495 July 12, 2021 8/14/2021