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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParking Advisory Board - Minutes - 11/13/2017MINUTES of the CITY OF FORT COLLINS PARKING ADVISORY BOARD November 13, 2017 5:30 p.m. 215 North Mason – Community Room Fort Collins, CO 80524 FOR REFERENCE: Council Liaison: Bob Overbeck Chair: Holly Wright Vice Chair: Bob Criswell Staff Liaison: Kurt Ravenschlag 221-6386 Administrative Support: Melissa Brooks 224-6161 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: CITY STAFF PRESENT: Holly Wright, Chair Kurt Ravenschlag, Transfort/Parking General Manager Bob Criswell, Vice Chair Annabelle Phillips, Transfort/Parking Admin. Aide Carey Hewitt Seth Lorson, Transit Planner Barbara Wilkins Kayla Utter Nora Hill Susan Kirkpatrick ABSENT: OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE Nicholas Bohn Jennifer Seiwald—Scrumpy’s Owner Jason Hevelone, Coppermuse Distillerty Owner 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Holly Wright called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm. 2. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS 3. AGENDA REVIEW 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Carey Hewitt moves to approve September minutes and Susan Kirkpatrick seconds. Minutes approved. **Draft** Meeting Minutes November 13, 2017 Page | 2 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT 6. PUBLIC COMMENT Seiwald: Parking is important to me as a business owner and I should have gotten involved in this group earlier. There have been a lot of changes downtown lately, and I want to make sure the group has some understanding of the issues, there has been a lot of construction happening, and we support new businesses, but this has had a lot of impact on our parking—construction companies take up a lot of parking spaces. Another thing that has been affecting our parking is the CSU football games. I do not feel that as a business owner, we should be taking the brunt of CSU game parking issues. There have been upwards of 40 parking spots blocked off for the games, in the alley from Cherry to Laporte, between City building and Spirae. This was blocked this past weekend from Friday night through Sunday. I understand they are running a lot of buses out of that area, but we are downtown merchants and our customers contribute a lot of City sales tax; and between construction and buses taking up that area, there were a lot of parking spaces blocked. I know there are not many home football games left, but I would plead the board to help find another place to park the buses, or find a way to not have to block the area for so long. I have had at least one employee have a “courtesy” tow when they parked there earlier than the signs were posted. Wright: Do the signs indicate that there is no parking there? And is there an alternative to have the buses park somewhere else? Ravenschlag: The buses were being parked somewhere else, and that was not working. There were too many obstacles to get through to get buses on the guideway to serve people for the event. Seiwald: I understand that, but does the area need to be blocked off for so long? That seemed outrageous. Ravenschlag: Part of the reason we extended the time was to avoid having to tow cars that were parked there. Seiwald: Another thing I would like to address with the board is permit pricing. I was, at one time, paying for parking for employees in the parking structures and at one time had about 10 different permits, I called and asked if I could get a discount for employees’ parking permits, I was told no, that I would need to “lump” the cost. I understand the issues with employees taking up key parking spots and I tried to be a good steward and eat those fees but I got to the point that I decided I needed to stop buying permits. I would hope that some of the business owners could get together and get a little bit of a discount on parking permits, we could open up some of the parking spaces downtown; but that has never been an option. Ravenschlag: The pricing right now is an obstacle? Seiwald: Yes, the pricing is an obstacle and the structures are getting full and with Washington’s opening up and drawing a lot of patrons, it is going to be really impossible, especially when you are blocking off parking spaces all day Saturday for a night game. This impacts not only my business, but the sales tax revenue. Parking spaces generate sales tax, it is hard enough for local merchants without adding the complications of CSU games affecting downtown businesses. **Draft** Meeting Minutes November 13, 2017 Page | 3 Ravenschlag: We have evaluated several areas to use for staging buses and have not yet found the perfect solution. It’s important to remember that this is a special event. There are also other events in the downtown area that are more impactful. I would like to address the comment about the permits, we offer rooftop permit for $20 per month. Seiwald: Yes, I had ten of them. I know that City employees park there for substantially less, I think if this group got together with some of the business owners, and could offer a discount in price, that would help get employees’ cars off the road. The permit process is also difficult because the permit has to be for that specific employee in their specific car, I cannot just get 10 permits and hand them out to employees to share. Ravenschlag: City employees do receive a discount, but the permit is still payed in full by the City. So it would be like you helping to pay for the permit of an employee. Seiwald: I feel there could be something with a package deal, or so that employees could share permits, that would help solve some of the downtown parking issues. I see other business owners move their cars every 2 hours; I am trying to be more responsible when it comes to parking and my employees’ parking. It is a lot of time to have those parking lots blocked out, and I do not understand why the spots were still blocked out on Sunday. Ravenschlag: We can look to see if we can shorten the amount of time those spots are blocked. One reason we blocked those parking spots so far in advance was to cut down on the amount of cars that would need to be relocated. We will also continue to look for other areas we can stage the buses, and there is only one game left this season. Seiwald: But there will be games again next year and this is setting a precedent. Once again we are going to have a lot of things pushing on our parking downtown such as sold out concerts at Washington’s. Hevelone: I do not have much to add; that is pretty accurate, in terms of the parking passes, I have several part time employees who only work a few days a week, if there was a way to share permits, it would make a lot more sense than buying a permit for each individual person. I also believe that for the CSU stadium to affect the downtown businesses so much does not seem fair. One of the biggest things my customers site as reasons for not coming down is the parking issues. Wright: Thank you so much, we really appreciate you coming today. Any other questions or comments? 7. DISCUSSION/INFORMATIONAL ITEMS Hill: I realize that our current technology does not allow us to effectively share permits, we have had this request before in the past and that would be great. In the future, I wonder if there a way that an employee could buy a certain number of hours for each license plate, then the employee could manage that amount of time throughout the month? Ravenschlag: We are exploring that, it is a request we have been getting in the RP3 zones as well. We are trying to figure out how we can do that, and know which license plates are valid at each **Draft** Meeting Minutes November 13, 2017 Page | 4 time. Hill: And if it was by hours, there would be almost no chance that they would all be parked in the structure at the same time, the employees would just have to manage their hours throughout the month; is there a way they could manage that? Ravenschlag: Maybe. So instead of buying a monthly permit, you would just be buying time for that month? Hill: Yes, time for that month for that specific license plate. Because realistically, you would not get a hoard of employees from multiple employers parking on the same day at the same time. It would likely average out to our normal occupancy anyway. Wright: there was another comment along those same lines, but regarding validating parking, I was talking to Ryan Hodak and he was wondering if he has a customer, can he validate their parking with the new parking structure via the app? Lorson: That is exactly what the capability is. The merchant would have a code to be able to validate parking. We are having to rethink things with the new parking structure because there are two ways to pay, one at the pay station and one with the app, and then we have the existing system, the gated validation cards, where you pay at the machine. So we are currently putting together education about how to utilize all three of those modes. Kirkpatrick: I know when I worked for the state they had the technology to be able to tell if two cars are using the same permit, it would be nice if we could do something similar. Ravenschlag: I think there is capability; we just need to be able to set up the system, so we will need to take our existing system and modify it. With the parking structure and the new technology the way we will register a permit is that it will be associated with a license plate. We would have to see if it could be associated with multiple license plates, and use them one at a time; or the idea that you could register a permit by the hour. Hill: That would really work out well for employers, especially with part time employees. Criswell: We have 4 permits that only take up 2 spots at a time; I would be happy to pay more for permits if there was a way to designate a certain number of spots in the structure that were set aside for employees, and have the businesses police it. That might be an alternative, because those permits are good anytime, but it is really only being used during the hours I am open. Hewitt: The problem is that, just like the airlines, the permits are overbooked, because they know that not everyone with a permit will be parking all the time. We are able to get a better utilization of the parking garages for the citizens as a whole. Criswell: I am trying to individualize that fact to the businesses; I am not too concerned about the use of the garages by the customers because they do not seem to do it too well, if we could get all the employees off the streets, there would be a lot more parking available on the street for customers. Ravenschlag: What Carey said is exactly right, and is our line of thinking for why we have not **Draft** Meeting Minutes November 13, 2017 Page | 5 done that; we want to maximize the use of the structures. We do not even like to set aside the electric vehicle spots only for electric vehicles because there would not be enough people utilizing them, and we want to be able to use all the spots in the structures. We are not getting to the point yet where we are running out of parking spaces in the structure. There are typically always an open spot thought you may need to go to an upper floor. Criswell: I hear from a lot of customers that there is always plenty of parking, and that usually from the third floor up is empty. I think it would be best to get the employees off the street. Wright: Any other comments on this topic? I think we had some good discussion. Let’s continue to our work plan discussion. Work Plan Discussion One minor spelling change adopted, no other additions, changes, or questions were discussed for the 2018 Work Plan. Nora Hill moves to approve 2018 parking board work plan, Barbara Wilkins seconds the motion. 2018 Parking Advisory Board Work Plan is approved unanimously. Mason Corridor Project Discussion regarding identifying opportunities along the Max Corridor to have more Park and Rides. There is currently a grant application and staff is finishing up the grant itself. This may look like leases, easements, simple purchases of property, staff is having conversations with property owners about how we can utilize more space for Park and Rides. There is a lot of feedback from the community that more parking along this corridor will be a positive addition for transportation in Fort Collins. Timeframe for starting this will be 2018. We have also had an opportunity to work with a parking garage consultant, Martin and Martin, to identify some feasibility footprints for a structure at Drake and College. Right now there is a 65 space easement, which is pretty small for the footprint of a parking structure, with another 17 spaces up along the Max guideway. We are looking to see what kind of footprint we could have, so when Kroger does come back we will be ready to have a discussion. 2017 Board Report Discussion Discussion regarding item 1 from the 2017 Work Plan and the reasons it was not able to be accomplished. This item was placed on the 2018 Work Plan. City Staff will try to update the 2017 report then email out to board members for review and further discussion at our next meeting in December. Wright: The good news is that we submitted letters to City Council which summarized areas that were incorporated in the work plan, so we should be able to refer to some of those and incorporate some of that information. It is going to be very important in 2018 to stay in touch with the City on the Transportation Master Plan and stay engaged with that plan. Ride Sharing Kirkpatrick: I am interested in the Uber phenomenon happening at the stadium and also downtown. I have observed that people who plan to drink utilize Uber in a way that is very exciting, and not endangering the rest of us by driving around. Is that true for the stadium and do we have adequate places for Uber? Ravenschlag: About 40% of stadium attendees are coming through Uber and Transit, split evenly. The location for the ridesharing was on Remington, by the high school, but they wanted to be a lot closer. **Draft** Meeting Minutes November 13, 2017 Page | 6 That is difficult because there are a lot of areas around campus that are closed to vehicles, meant for pedestrians and bikes to access. There are other areas that are closed to allow for buses to operate. They have been coming in through the Sheeley neighborhood through Whitcomb and they have been coming in on the north side even though there is an officer and a barricade. Wright: Did we resolve the DT Uber pick up/drop off location issue? Ravenschlag: We have a team working on that, I think they are close to having a temporary solution, but I do not know enough about that to share a lot of details. Wilkins: There is a good spot between the hotel and the music venue that would be a good spot. It is not a busy street, and has a little island there, that I think would be perfect for this purpose. 8. REPORTS A. BOARD REPORT Chair Wright recently attended a transportation board meeting which presented results from a recent travel behavior survey. The results of which showed non-students took 61% of their trips in single occupancy vehicles and that 72% of the total miles they traveled were in single occupancy vehicles. Students took 39% of their trips in single occupancy vehicles while 60% of the total miles they traveled were in single occupancy vehicles. 40% of respondents used bikes, walking, transit, and ride sharing. The full survey results are posted online at fcgov.com/travelsurvey. Wright: The reason why I wanted to bring this up is the City transportation plan and master plan is coming up and I think it is important for us to come up with ways to get people to use transportation instead of getting in their cars and driving around town. How do we get people to park in a convenient parking place and take the Max down, how do we get them to ride share, Uber, not always just jump in a SOV and drive around town and cause congestion? This is something that is very important to address. Ravenschlag: Time and money are usually the driving factors of someone switching a mode. We have seen this at CSU, they have pretty effectively figured out how push a lot of people off campus and encouraged them to find other ways to get to campus through their pricing. Another is timing, if it is quicker to use another mode such as riding a bike in, or taking transit, they will do that. That is what we have seen as the two driving factors of people making that choice. Criswell: I have an anecdote that speaks to that—we gave employees a choice between getting a bus pass or a parking permit. One of our employees chose the bus pass then said she changed her mind and asked for the parking permit, she said that if she was going to get in her car and drive down to catch the max, she might as drive all the way downtown. I do not know if that is a unique mentality or if other people share that opinion. B. STAFF LIAISON REPORT Firehouse Alley will be opening on December 7, there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony, though City staff is unsure of the time at this point, will find out and get the information to the board. New structure pricing will be $1.50/hour; existing structures’ pricing will not change at this time. The plan is for the new pricing structure to be phased in when those structures are retrofitted with the new technology. Canyon Avenue was restriped to be diagonal parking on the most southwestern blocks of that street. This added 95 new parking spaces to that area. A permit program is also being piloted there, essentially **Draft** Meeting Minutes November 13, 2017 Page | 7 turning 17 of those spaces into parking lot spaces. 10. OTHER BUSINESS Carey, Susan and Holly will be departing the board at the end of this term. There will be a meeting in December to wrap up and approve the 2017 Board Report. 11. ADJOURN Barbara Wilkins motioned to adjourn and Nora Hill seconds. The meeting was concluded at 6:54 pm. Respectfully submitted, Annabelle Phillips Administrative Aide Transfort/Parking Services