It’s well known among Boulderites that staying in downtown parking structures until after the attendants leave means the gates go up, and the entire night of parking is free of charge. What’s one more drink if it means free parking?
But this may be changing.
Councilman Macon Cowles began asking about public parking prices and policies via email through the Boulder City Council’s Hotline at the beginning of July.
Cowles wants the City Council to look at how city parking policies align with city goals, which include reducing traffic, carbon emissions and congestion, as well as generating revenue. He says he raises the issue because of long waiting lists for parking permits in city facilities and the price difference between public and private parking garages.
Molly Winter, executive director of the Downtown and University Hill Management Division and Parking Services, has been working on parking in Boulder since the late ’90s. She says after years without wait lists, there are currently 1,234 people waiting for city parking garage permits, although some companies are on lists at multiple garages. The city already oversells permits by 105-125 percent in order to maximize the use of each facility.
Due to increased demand and market trends, Winter says parking permit rates in city downtown garages have increased 28.6 percent in three years — 3.6 percent in 2014, 16 percent in 2015 and a proposed 9 percent in 2016. Previous to that, parking rates only increased by approximately 4 percent every other year, according to Winter. Current permits are $330 per quarter ($110 a month), and are expected to increase to $350 a quarter in 2016. In contrast, private garages charge anywhere between $375 and $600 a quarter. Surface lots in downtown, which cost $200 a quarter, increased rates by 21.9 percent in the same three-year period.
“There continues to be a robust demand for parking in the downtown and presumably that’s why fees have gone up. But our rates are not comparable to private garages in town,” Cowles says. His emails refer to the pricing difference as a “subsidy” for downtown parkers.
“What’s a little bit different from comparing our garages to private garages is that private garages are first and foremost for the tenants,” Winter says.
She says the published rates of certain companies, including One Boulder Plaza, which Cowles refers to in the emails, are not indicative of parking rates for all their tenants, but rather the rates are negotiated as part of each tenant’s lease. “They are focused on making sure their tenants are happy,” she says. Plus, “In some of the private garages, the landowner has said they set their short-term rates really high to discourage short-term parking.”
The city, on the other hand, is tasked with providing parking for employees, shoppers and visitors alike. “It’s hard to have a straight across comparison,” Winter says. “We just have a different purpose, different goals.”
Winter and her team assess the parking rates in April of each year and make budget recommendations based on the market trends, which is all a part of the public budget review process with City Council. “We don’t have the flexibility that a private garage does. If they say they want to raise the rates next month they can,” Winter says.
Cowles also raises the question of possible lost revenue when parking for free in surface lots and parking garages after lot attendants leave at the end of the day, which Winter’s department has not tracked. “It seems to me that it’s trackable,” Cowles says. “We know at least how many tickets have not been paid for. I would think the city can develop that information and it may be important. We probably should be tracking that.”
Rather than tracking lost revenue, Winter’s department is researching a new gate-access system, either a “pay on foot machine” or credit-card machine at the gate, in order to collect on charges after the attendant leaves for the night. The current staffing at parking garages will most likely remain in place. “We feel it’s important [attendants] provide customer service, and they provide a lot of information actually to people who are visiting,” says Winter.
The city currently charges $1.25 an hour for the first four hours and $2.50 an hour after that for short-term parking in downtown structures. Winter says those prices will remain the same in 2016.
“The goal of all of this [is] not about the parking. It’s about making sure our commercial districts are vital from an economic standpoint,” Winter says. “We want to find that sweet-spot [between] the market trends, charging enough that it could make people think twice about driving if they have other options [and] we also realize a lot of our employees don’t have options; they don’t have access to transit.”
Cowles says aligning the parking prices with the city’s goals is a policy decision, and he’s asked to bring the issue forward for discussion in a September City Council meeting.
