Better Downtown Parking – Increasing the supply and managing it better…

 Better Downtown Parking – Increasing the supply and managing it better…

How This Report Will Help You Improve Downtown Parking By Laurence A. Alexander

Published by Downtown Research and Development Center ISBN 0-915910-25-X

December 1, 1987

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Downtown-Parking-Increasing-Managing/dp/091591025X

Not long ago most downtowners thought "improving parking" meant getting more spaces, or getting free parking, or hopefully getting both.

Today many downtowners -- and all downtown planners and parking experts — know that there is far more to it than that.  I have been involved in more than one downtown where they had, in fact, excess parking, but business was still bad.  How does that happen?  Bad locations, poor rate and hour structures, careless maintenance and sloppy operations, long walking distances, hidden parking and many other factors can cause it.

A really good parking system consists of just the right number of parking spaces, strategically located relative to destinations, set up to serve both short-and long-term parking, priced right (not always free) and operated expertly.

This is not a cookbook showing how to get more parking.  That topic is addressed.  But more important, this book is designed to tell downtowners:

*  How to think right about downtown parking

*  How to plan a total parking system that meets all needs

*  How to get the right amount of parking;  not too few spaces nor too many (they are very expensive to develop and operate)

*  How to define your downtown parking goals and how to shape parking plans to reach them

*   

In addition, this book aims to alert downtowners to essential new ideas and concepts such as efficient shared-parking, standards for calculating demand, organizing free parking districts and other techniques, providing super-peak parking for special events and more.

Another basic idea covered relates to making all parking more productive -- a wonderful substitute for the staggering costs of building more lots or structures. Parking system management, as it is often called, does this.  It should be well-understood by all downtowners interested in CBD parking, business, economic growth and service to the public.

Free parking, management, relationship to transit, handling heavy employee parking loads, newest ideas and trends, metering or not-metering -- even the "ideal" parking system are all covered.  You should find this all extremely useful!

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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

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