Why Parking Matters
Written by: Vanessa Rogers, Vice President of the Cedar Rapids Downtown District
On April 1, 2011, board members from the Cedar Rapids Downtown District and the Self-Supported Municipal Improvement District joined the Cedar Rapids City Council in taking a leap of faith. Nearly a year after the City Council unanimously approved the Parking Strategic Action Plan in April 2009, an agreement had been reached that would transfer management oversight of Cedar Rapids’ municipally-owned parking system to the Downtown District.
Across the country, downtown associations and business improvement districts have taken a more active role in the management of downtown parking systems. Other downtown associations that are successfully managing municipal parking can be found in Ann Arbor, Boise, Tempe and Lexington. Unlike the controversial lease of Chicago’s parking meters to a private investment firm, resulting in dramatically higher rates and an outpouring of anger from the community, when downtown associations get involved with parking it is generally driven by a mission-based desire to improve the system. The Downtown District is not taking a management fee for our services, nor are we seeking to add another layer of bureaucracy. What the downtown boards and City leadership all recognized through transfer of system management was that parking can no longer be an afterthought; it needs a strong champion and that champion is the Downtown District.
In 2010, the International Parking Institute launched an industry-wide public relations campaign called “Parking Matters.” I have to admit that my first thought when I saw the campaign announcement was, “anyone who thinks that parking doesn’t matter should just spend five minutes talking to anyone in downtown Cedar Rapids.” In Cedar Rapids, parking doesn’t just “matter” – it is one of the top economic development issues facing our downtown. Over the next two to three years, almost three quarters of a billion dollars will be invested in downtown Cedar Rapids by both the public and private sectors. The availability of clean, safe and accessible parking is a, if not the, deciding factor in where someone chooses to buy property, open a business, live or take their family out for the evening. Parking is a critical piece of downtown infrastructure that we can simply no longer afford to ignore.
This fall the Downtown District will officially launch the parking system’s new brand “Park Cedar Rapids.” At an early-October news conference, the Downtown District, City and Park Cedar Rapids leadership will detail progress on a variety of parking initiatives, including the launch of a new parking website www.parkcedarrapids.com. The news conference will also mark the “go live” date of the new “LUKE” multi-space parking meter pay stations. The new LUKE pay stations will offer a variety of payment options including coin, credit and debit cards. Named LUKE by the manufacturer, Digital Payment Technologies, the new meters are completely solar powered and will also allow parking patrons the option of paying for parking directly from their cell phones or via smart phone application.
Rather than having an individual coin-only meter at each space, parking patrons will see numbered signs and instructions directing them to the nearest LUKE pay station when they pull up to the curb. There will be approximately one LUKE pay station on each side of the street per block. The pay stations will be marked with the new Park Cedar Rapids logo and with the wording “Pay Here.” Some traditional coin-only meters will remain in downtown in areas where there are not enough spaces to justify a multi-space LUKE pay station or in spaces designated for handicapped parking. Park Cedar Rapids staff is reviewing technologies to enhance the payment options at those spaces, with a likely transition to single space credit/debit card enabled meters in 2012. In the weeks following the launch of the new LUKE pay station, Park Cedar Rapids Ambassadors will be on the street to assist parking patrons.
Revitalization of the downtown parking system in Cedar Rapids is about so much more than parking. It is a strong example of the type of public-private collaboration needed to tackle some of the “less sexy” infrastructure projects that are so vital to the success of all the investment that will be made over the next decade to ensure Cedar Rapids’ place as one of the top economic growth regions in the U.S. The new Park Cedar Rapids brand is about so much more than the two lines between which you park your car – it is about starting a conversation with each and every visitor to downtown Cedar Rapids with “Welcome, we’re glad you’re here.”
For more information on parking initiatives in downtown Cedar Rapids visit www.downtowncr.org.
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