Parking Management Jump Start Guide

Increasing Functional Supply with Striping, Forest Grove

In Forest Grove, the city proposed reconfiguring centrally-located 21st Street as a Festival Street, a street that prioritizes walking and lingering that is intended to regularly host events.

While local businesses and stakeholders broadly supported the plans, people had concerns about parking. The Festival Street plan called for eliminating seven on-street spaces along 21st Street, in the busiest part of the downtown core with high parking demand during most of the day.

However, when the city conducted a parking study, it found that, while the striped segment of Main Street south of 21st had significant parking demand, the much quieter and unstriped block north of 21st had far less demand. Further, vehicles were using this parking in an inefficient way, significantly reducing the functional capacity of the block face. The consultant recommended installing striping along this block, which would result in a total of 19 spaces—a marked increase in utility compared to the small handful of poorly parked vehicles under existing conditions—all within a 2-minute walk from destinations on 21st.

For local merchants and other interested parties, the new striping represented an addition of new parking stalls to help offset the loss of stalls from the Festival Street plan. This was a key consideration in allowing the Festival Street to move forward.

Note: Construction of the Festival Street is deferred as of late 2024. The image to the left is a concept rendering by MIG Consulting.

Setting Time Limits, Newport

The City of Newport includes three distinct commercial areas: City Center, situated along Highway 101 and home to a retail district and the County Seat; Nye Beach, a vibrant and growing oceanfront district; and the Bayfront, a “working bayfront” that generates heavy demand from a mixture of tourism, fishing, and related uses. The different characteristics and needs of each district require distinct parking management strategies.

In the City Center district, which handles demand from city and county business and the retail destinations primarily cater to locals, a two hour time limit is in place. Single-stop trips make up the majority of parking demand in this area, and practically speaking, the local segment of Highway 101 makes walking to multiple destinations difficult or unpleasant.

Nye Beach, by contrast, is far more walkable and caters primarily to tourists and visitors, with a mix of retail, restaurant, and related land uses. Here, the time limit is three hours, which aims to allow visitors to park once and patronize multiple destinations. However, the time limit intends to restrict people from parking and spending the day on the beach, pushing beach traffic to nearby parking lots and freeing up street parking for commercial activity.

At the Bayfront, there are again a number of restaurants and retail establishments that cater to tourists, as well as a significant presence of fishing-related uses. The four hour time limit aims to serve the gamut of potential demand streams, keeping in mind that the large, walkable district attracts both locals and visitors who want to park once and spend several hours enjoying the area.

A parking study demonstrated that, while the time limits were effective at keeping demand in check in the City Center and Nye Beach districts, demand regularly exceeded 85% at the Bayfront for large swaths of the day. However, the study also showed that people were typically parking for most or all of the allowed four hours, and the city certainly wanted to encourage the “park once and patronize many” behaviors the longer time limits allowed. So Newport would need an intervention that helped redistribute demand from crowded Bay Boulevard to the less busy lots and street parking nearby, without reducing the four hour time limits...

Bagging Meters, Hood River

“Bagging meters”—the practice of turning meters off for the holiday season, traditionally by covering old single-space meters with bags—has been taking place in Hood River since the city first installed meters. This practice tends to be civically popular, but from a parking management perspective it represents removing a powerful management tool at the worst possible time.

When meters are bagged, early-arriving employees are again able to fill premium spaces before customers arrive. What’s more is that during the holiday season, there tends to be an increase in employees in downtowns, to accommodate an expected increase in customers. This is precisely the dynamic meters were invented to solve. Turning them off in this case is about the worst thing a city can do from a management perspective.

Not surprisingly, the city experiences a number of problems related to the bagging of the meters. According to city staff, it can be “impossible” to park near one’s destination during busy times and the city fields a number of complaints regarding parking during this time.

The Ultimate Mixed-Use Parking Benefit District, Northwest Portland

A previous case study examined Northwest Portland’s unique management system: All parking within the district is metered, but residents and employees can buy an annual permit in lieu of feeding the meters.

As Northwest Portland began to grow and thrive coming out of the Great Recession of 2008, sentiment within the neighborhood was divided on how to manage demand, with many looking for opportunities to add new supply in lieu of pricing solutions. However, by committing to returning 50% of meter revenues to the district (at the time all existing meter revenue in Portland went to the general fund), PBOT won support to install meters in a wide swath of the district in 2016.

While the meters were immediately impactful at managing demand, permits were oversold and at $60/year, far too inexpensive, so parking congestion remained. To address this, the District took a market-based approach, capping the number of permits sold on a per-building basis and adjusting prices based on observed demand to the current (2024) price of $202.50/year. Again, the idea that revenues are returned to the district—100% of net permit revenues are returned to the district after administration and collection costs—was instrumental in winning and maintaining support for this policy.

A key benefit funded by this program is the Transportation Wallet program. The Transportation Wallet concept evolved over many years, with significant study and outreach focused on the Northwest District and aims to reduce the need for street parking by providing access to transportation options available in the area. The 2024 Transportation Wallet costs $99 and includes an annual pass on the Portland Streetcar, a TriMet Hop Card loaded with $200, $99 in Biketown credits, and $30 in e-scooter credits. Additionally, an Access-for-All Transportation Wallet program aims to increase access to these modes for low-income households, by providing these resources for free.

A Parking Benefit District around Events, Eugene

The City of Eugene has a number of unique parking management challenges arising from the University of Oregon’s campus and the dense residential neighborhoods surrounding it. A textbook example of this is the Matthew Knight Arena, home to the Ducks basketball teams which also hosts events like concerts, tennis matches, rodeos, and monster truck rallies. Though the arena seats 12,500, it was proposed with only 370 new on-site parking stalls.

This plan predictably raised concerns about parking within the Fairmount neighborhood where it was to be located. To address these concerns, a Neighborhood Arena Liaison Committee was formed, consisting of representatives from the University of Oregon, local businesses, the City of Eugene, and the Fairmount Neighbors Association. The committee worked to develop an Arena Impact Mitigation Agreement, identifying impacts and potential mitigations, the latter of which included measures such as street improvements, litter patrol, free permits for residents, and enforcement and monitoring. This would be paid for by the University in exchange for the ability to sell permits for on-street parking during events, creating a Benefit District that was fully funded by event parking.

Overall, the event-based Benefit District around Matthew Knight Arena has been successful in balancing the needs of the arena with maintaining neighborhood livability. In addition to the event-funded services and amenities, the creation of the event parking district virtually eliminated congestion from employee and student parking. The district remains financially self-sustaining, with the university allowed to sell event parking permits for up to 22 events per year. According to Eugene’s Curbside Services Director Jeff Petry, “Ultimately, the new arena allowed the city, the university, and the neighborhood to find a way, through sometime difficult conversations, to come together, develop a plan, and function as a community team.”

Enforcement with a Community Partner, Albany

Albany currently contracts with the Albany Downtown Association to manage downtown parking and conduct enforcement via a program branded as ParkWise. The program employs two “Parking Ambassadors” who split six 7-hour shifts each week, responsible for a combination of public relations—helping people understand regulations and find appropriate parking—and traditional enforcement. They are supported by about 35 hours per week of work from office staff, whose role is administrative. ParkWise manages permitting, enforcement and light maintenance, while the City is responsible for major maintenance. Revenue from tickets goes to ParkWise and is sufficient to support the program. Unpaid tickets are followed up on first with a letter from ParkWise and, if still unaddressed, are sent to collections.

This has historically worked well in Albany, as ParkWise can tailor its management and enforcement efforts to provide robust access to downtown in consultation with business owners and other stakeholders. As their name suggests, the Parking Ambassadors serve as liaison for visitors in much the same way as Oregon City’s downtown enforcement officer, and the program tends to be accordingly popular locally (insofar as parking management can be described as “popular”).

However, the City is currently considering a number of management changes including the potential introduction of metering downtown. When implemented, these changes may trigger the need for the City to reassume parking enforcement responsibility, with citations adjudicated through the local court system.

Contracting Enforcement, Medford

For cities that need some level of parking enforcement but lack the resources to implement it directly, a potential solution is to contract enforcement out to a private company. The cities of Medford and Ashland represent interesting complementary case studies in enforcement via contractual relationships with a private parking management partner.

Medford uses a private company called Diamond Parking to manage parking. Diamond handles all aspects of the management and revenue handling for the city, collecting revenue from both meters and tickets and managing administration of the “PayByPhone” application. The city is charged for the operational expenses of the program—primarily staff time for enforcement officers and administrative support, with standard mark-ups—along with a flat fee of $600/month. Since Diamond handles all revenue directly, the city simply receives a check— or occasionally a bill, if revenues fall short of expenses—at the end of the month.

By and large, this enforcement set-up tends to work well; However, it also provides a good example of management decisions negatively impacting enforcement strategies and revenues. In Medford’s metered areas, the first hour is free and patrons only pay for the second (or more) hours. This policy can sometimes cause confusion about when it’s necessary to pay and has led to a dynamic where the city brings in more revenue from tickets than meter/lot payments. The city considers this suboptimal from a management standpoint, and local merchants and businesses also have raised concerns regarding the propensity of their customers to get ticketed. At the same time, business owners see the free first hour as a welcome sign to their customers, providing a good illustration of the various trade-offs inherent in setting pricing and enforcement policies.

The Benefit of Changing Enforcement Providers, Ashland

Medford’s neighbor Ashland also conducts parking enforcement via an outside contractor and represents a good example of how cities can use the competitive nature of the industry to obtain the best value. Ashland awards a contract for parking enforcement every five years on a competitive basis, most recently in early 2024.

Ashland awarded the current contract to LAZ Parking, which offered a substantial reduction in the annual fee and a better value proposition for the City. Under the previous contract, the City paid a fixed annual fee of $175,600 and $175,900 in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Revenues were $134,600 and $194,000 for those same years. While the City saw a modest surplus in 2023, there was a $45,000 cost to the enforcement efforts in 2022. Under the new contract, the fixed annual cost was reduced to $118,000, with 2024 revenues exceeding $200,000 as of the end of May. The more favorable contract and Ashland’s continued rebound from COVID have resulted in a significant increase of revenue from enforcement available to the City.

An interesting outcome is that when the previous provider lost Ashland’s contract, they were forced to lay off much of the Ashland-based staff. Some of these employees were picked up by LAZ upon assuming enforcement efforts. By switching providers, the City was able to get a much better value while still effectively retaining many of its existing enforcement officers.