Paid parking downtown could make things better, if handled properly

For those who live and work in the capital city’s core, it’s known as the “downtown shuffle.” From 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. every weekday, many employees head out to their vehicles several times per day to move them from one two-hour parking spot to another to avoid a parking ticket.

It’s been going on for decades, and downtown business owners have been complaining about it just as long. Their main objection isn’t so much the lost productivity caused by their workers participating in this ongoing dance; it’s the fact that a lack of open spaces in front of their business deters people from shopping there.

Recently, the Cheyenne City Council started taking action to try to address the issue by creating a paid parking district. What happens next has the potential to finally put an end to the “downtown shuffle,” but, if not done correctly, could drive shoppers to other parts of town. Though the resolution to create a paid parking district has been approved, the council can still give guidance to project leaders as they come back with more information to address public concerns and consider possibilities to mitigate them.

Before we offer our suggestions for how our elected leaders might best address this issue, we feel like we have to state the obvious. If the real issue is employees of downtown businesses filling the spaces, why aren’t more business owners renting spaces in one of the city’s two downtown parking garages for their workers? And if their employees aren’t willing to walk from their place of employment to the garage, why not ask City Council members to create parking permit zones, off the busiest streets, where downtown parking permits would allow them to park all day?

That said, the problem still exists or else members of the Cheyenne Downtown Business Collective wouldn’t have asked council members to take action. Since creating the district was just the first step, it will be up to councilors to strike a thoughtful balance between creating parking space turnover and not discouraging residents and visitors from shopping downtown.

The easiest way to do that would be to allow 30 minutes of free parking per vehicle each day. With the license plate reader technology already being used by city parking officials or smartphone apps, this would be easy to enforce. That way, residents making a quick stop to pick up a prescription, grab a to-go cup of coffee or snag a specific item from a downtown store wouldn’t be charged.

The next thing councilors could do is place the most restrictive time limits in the areas most in need of them and during the busiest time of day. For example, south of 20th Street, from Pioneer Avenue to Warren Avenue, contains the highest concentration of retail businesses and restaurants, and those places are busiest between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Why not require paid parking in that area just during that time frame?

Another potential solution to the “downtown shuffle” is providing extra incentives for business owners in the district to use the existing parking permit system, then dedicating one Cheyenne Transit System bus to running a continuous loop between the two city-owned parking garages and through the downtown corridor between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. weekdays (at least when weather conditions are poor). Maybe the Downtown Development Authority could use some money generated by its mill levy to help fund such a service.

Some of the questions and concerns that have been raised since the parking district was created are valid and deserve answers as the council prepares to take further action:

• What accommodations will exist for people who either don’t have a smartphone or don’t want to use it for payments? Will there be kiosks similar to the ones used in the Spiker garage and the city-owned lot east of Warren?
• How does the city plan to address the valid concerns that such a change could push people into residential areas north and east of the parking district or encourage drivers to park in free lots, such as the one for the Laramie County Library?
• Since city leaders say they want to increase the number of people living downtown, how will that be factored into future parking limits?
• Is the city also considering adding more bike racks and other ways to encourage different modes of transportation to and from the downtown area?
• Besides the financial benefit experienced by Greeley, Colorado, which other cities have been consulted about the potential impacts of making such a change? (For example, Caldwell, Idaho, population 68,336, suspended its paid parking downtown in August after just three months following complaints from community members about user accessibility, pedestrian safety and lost business revenue.)

In early 2016, the Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organization, using federal grant money, contracted with Kimley-Horn and Associates out of Fort Collins, Colorado, to create a Downtown Strategic Parking Plan (online at plancheyenne.org/project/parkit). The resulting 154-page report, issued in April 2017, identified a variety of ways to improve parking availability in the city’s downtown core. Among them was paid on-street parking.

More than seven years later, a survey by the DDA of property owners in the area showed nearly 70% were either supportive of or neutral on the idea of paid parking, according to city staff liaison Charles Bloom. Since DDA represents property owners, this doesn’t mean all downtown business owners were surveyed, but it is yet another potential indicator of support.

It’s clear something must change. The question remains what and how best to do it. City Council members need to listen to their constituents, do their homework and make thoughtful decisions for these changes to be effective.